European farmers call for urgent action as fertiliser shortage looms

European farming associations Copa and Cogeca have called on the European Commission to take immediate action to curb the rising cost of inputs and guarantee the viability of EU farms.

With gas price volatility and restrictions to the supply of key fertiliser inputs through Strait of Hormuz forcing up prices, farmers are demanding a series of measures to address the fertiliser shortage and ensure long-term market stability.

Four days before the outbreak of the war in Iran, the European Union approved a temporary measure intended to save approximately €60mn import duties by suspending Most Favoured Nation (MFN) tariffs on ammonia and urea imports for one year. With the conflict further complicating the situation, Copa and Cogeca are calling on the European Commission to implement further measures, including relaxing the Nitrates Directive and increasing the use of organic and recycled nutrients.

In a recently published position paper, the organisations detail a set of immediate, medium-term, and long-term measures they consider essential to stabilise the market and reduce the sector’s vulnerability in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical context. The document comes after last December’s protests by thousands of farmers in Brussels calling for urgent solutions to the rising cost of inputs.

The document sets out a series of actions that the European Commission should integrate into the Action Plan without delay. Short-term measures include the suspension of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (known by its English acronym as CBAM) to reduce its impact on production costs; modification of the Nitrates Directive to reduce dependence on synthetic fertilisers and facilitate greater flexibility in the use of manures, and strengthening the Fertiliser Market Observatory and applying Competition measures to provide farmers with reliable information on their availability and prices.

The document also calls on the EU to align and apply Renure manure application criteria (nitrogen recovered from manure) with the recommendations of the JRC (Joint Research Centre).

Some of these measures were already announced in early January by the European Commissioner for Trade, Commissioner Šefčovič. He pointed out that with fertiliser costs currently around 60 per cent higher than in 2020, the situation is “simply not sustainable”.

Copa and Cogeca stress that the European Commission’s long-awaited Fertiliser Action Plan – due to be presented this week – must “reflect agronomic and economic realities on the ground”, deliver immediate relief and set out a credible pathway towards sustainable nutrient management. The measures proposed, they argue, represent “the minimum required” to address a crisis that farmers have been warning about for years and which could have far‑reaching consequences for the entire European Union.