Fertilisers Action Plan: Urgent clarity and concrete support needed

Today, the European Commission presented its long-awaited Fertilisers Action Plan. Farm Europe welcomes the recognition by the European Commission of the scale of the challenge and the need for urgent actions. However, key practical elements are missing to send a strong signal to farmers and to the industry such as the level of the most needed emergency support via the crisis reserve as well as concrete policy directions ahead of the ETS revisions, when it comes to the trajectory for free allowances and CBAM related to fertilisers.

The commitment to create pathways between CRCF and ETS revenues is a move in the right direction to create a true business model for emission reductions via incentives for farmers, without agriculture being covered by ETS, but this commitment should be accompanied by stronger short term measures to overcome the ongoing crisis.

The intention to guarantee policy coherence between the fertilisers action plan and the up-coming livestock strategy is also a positive orientation of the action plan. In that regard, the willingness to promote the movement of nutrients from livestock regions with structural surpluses to regions with nutrient needs within the single market is a good step forward. The will to unlock the potential of digestate via an extension of the RENURE Act, boosting biomethane production, fostering bio-based fertilisers opening up the scope for innovation enhancing circularity are also steps in the right direction.

In practical terms, the focus of EU policy should be “efficiency”, moving away from regulations that discourage production or even encourage reductions. The option for Member States to re-open their CAP strategic plan focusing on efficiency is a positive signal which is blurred by mixing new potential ecoschemes with agro-environmental measures while complementarity between those interventions should be encouraged, clarifying the perimeter of the revision of national strategic plans.

Those medium to long term steps forward of the action plan should urgently be accompanied by short term relief to insure continuity of EU food systems facing a major shock since the triggering of the war in Ukraine, aggravated by the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. European farmers are facing an increasingly untenable situation, which is already reflected by the losses of agricultural land across Europe.

With nitrogen fertiliser prices still 70% above 2024 levels in April 2026, European farmers are already reducing acreage and switching away from certain crops, in particular wheat. The Commission’s emergency agricultural reserve remains undefined in amount and eligibility criteria. The only fully operational short-term measure — the temporary State aid framework adopted on 29 April — rests with Member States. This is not enough. Farmers need to know today what support they can count on before the next sowing season.