Circular Economy: the use of resources in a more sustainable and competitive way. Starting from this principle, now part of the European Commission “philosophy”, the same is proposing to develop a new Regulation for the fertilizer sector, in particular including organic fertilizers and those obtained from household waste. The proposal contains several elements that will help create a level playing field for all fertilizing products, while at the same time ensure high safety and environmental protection standards.
In a detailed statement (it can be downloaded HERE), the Commission provides all the elements for the new proposal, including how will the proposal contribute to the circular economy, what fertilising products will be covered, how will the new rules improve the protection of health and the environment and how will resource efficiency be improved.
The new labeling shall indicate the actual content of nutrients and their forms, and this will allow farmers to modulate the use of fertilizers depending on the needs of plants. The proposal also wants to delineate the boundaries between fertilizers and plant protection products, to avoid overlaps between bio-stimulants for plants and plant growth regulators. Around half of the fertilizers currently on the market are left out of the scope of the Fertilizers Regulation and the CE mark that ensures their access to the single market.
Organic fertilizers have a competitive advantage which hampers innovation and investment in the circular economy. The Commission therefore proposes to bring organic fertilizers within the scope of the Fertilizers Regulation and grant access to CE marking. All products will be labelled in a uniform way allowing European farmers to make informed choices, contributing to making food production more cost and resource effective.
The fertilizer sector supplies products to about 12 million farms in the EU to fertilize about 175 million hectares of agricultural land, employing around 130.000 people. Other jobs are indirectly created in the supply chain and sales activities.
Source: European Commission
