The European Commission published on 19 May its Fertiliser Action Plan, which aims, in the face of rising prices for mineral fertiliser, to ensure the availability and affordability of domestic fertilisers and propose actions enabling transition towards recycled nutrients and other alternatives.
The Action Plan recognises the regulatory and market-entry barriers faced by bio-based fertilisers, especially when they are derived from waste, and recognises the fragmentation of the single-market for bio-based fertilisers. It provides a wide range of short-term and long-term actions concerning bio-based fertilisers. In the short-term, the Commission wants to facilitate the use of digestates. In the long-term, the Commission aims to:
- Provide definitions of bio-based fertilisers.
- Create lead markets for bio-based fertilising products in the forthcoming Biotech Act II.
- Work to simplify the management of animal by-products intended for anaerobic digestion or composting and facilitate the marketing and use of bio-based fertilisers of animal origin.
- Give the possibility for Member States to use State aid instruments to support farmers to use and uptake bio-based (organic) fertilisers.
- Work on phosphorus and nitrogen recovery from relevant organic waste streams, including bio-waste, and assess the possibility to set nutrient recycling targets.
- Use the CAP and the Cohesion policy to support the separate collection and treatment of municipal bio-waste and the deployment of related bio-based fertilisers.
- Possibly extend the RENURE derogation to digestates, with appropriate environmental safeguards.
Launch of an EU-wide call for Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming projects that compensate farmers for the additional costs of bio-based fertilisers.