The new European Fertiliser Regulation, which definitely includes agricultural biostimulants, enters into force.
After several years of negotiations and continuous work, the new European Fertiliser Regulation has entered into force since mid-July. Jiloca Industrial S.A. JISA is pleased to communicate to its customers this important news for the sector, with relevance in many aspects, including that agricultural biostimulants have been definitely contemplated within the legislation of fertilisers and not in the phytosanitary legislation.
The document that has come into force is “Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of June 5, 2019 laying down provisions regarding the availability on the market of EU fertiliser products and the Regulations (EU) n. o 1069/2009 y (EU) n. o 1107/2009 are modified and the Regulation (EU) n. o 2003/2003 is repealed“.
At this point, for the first time an official definition is given for agricultural biostimulants with reach all EU member states, as well as the functions they can perform. Stresses that finally, biostimulants are described as products with a function more similar to fertilisers than to phytosanitary products, excluding them from this July 15 of the Regulation 1107/2009 related to the marketing of phytosanitary products.
According to the new European Fertiliser Regulation, “plant biostimulant” means an EU fertiliser product whose function is to stimulate plant nutrition processes regardless of the nutrient content of the product, with the sole objective of improving one or more of the following characteristics of plants and their rhizosphere: efficiency in the use of nutrients, tolerance to abiotic stress, quality characteristics and availability of nutrients immobilized in the soil and the rhizosphere.
This new European Fertiliser Regulation allows the free movement of fertilisers in the European territory, enhancing the circular economy and sustainable agriculture by promoting greater use of recycled materials and reducing waste and dependence on imported nutrients.
Functional Product Categories (FPC)
It also includes the classification of fertiliser products into new Functional Product Categories (FPC) according to their function. The sections are:
- FPC 1 – Fertilisers.
- FPC 2 – Limestone amendments.
- FPC 3 – Soil amendments.
- FPC 4 – Growing media.
- FPC 5 – Inhibitors.
- FPC 6 – Plant biostimulants.
- FPC 7 – Mixtures of fertiliser products.
For Jiloca Industrial S.A., JISA, this inclusion of the FPC 6 as plant biostimulants, is one of the highlights because as a company specialized in the manufacture of agronutrients and agricultural biostimulants, we have been researching and developing these biostimulant products for years and that needed legislation that would allow its commercialization without the competitive disadvantages compared to other producers in the world with whom they have had to live together in recent times.