Recycled nutrients, in particular struvites and recovered ammonia nitrogen, are back onto the EU Organic Farming Expert Group (EGTOP) agenda. Struvite and calcined phosphates from municipal wastewater were already “approved” by the Commission’s technical committee for Organic Farming six years ago (EGTOP 2/2/2016) but are today still not included into the EU Organic Farming Regulation. Since then, ESPP-European Sustainable Phosphorous Platform has supplied extensive information to the Organic Farming federation IFOAM, a “reflections” paper has been published by lead experts in FiBL identifying under what conditions recycled phosphorus could be accepted in Organic Farming, and the RELACS project has received EU-funding to assess (amongst others) recycled nutrients. However, no real progress has been made, with the RELACS “Roadmap” proposing more discussion and more research (as reported by ESPP eNews n°66). This is regrettable in that recycling to avoid consumption of non-renewable resources is a foundation of Organic Farming, and Organic Farming risks losing productivity and soil fertility because of inadequate phosphorus supply (see Marie Reimer in ESPP eNews n°49). In answer to a written question from two members of the European Parliament (Peter Jahr, Norbert Lins), the European Commission has replied “Based on the recommendation in EGTOP’s final report on fertilisers, to be published soon, the Commission will take a decision on the possible inclusion of these products”. It is unclear what this means, in that the EGTOP minutes of 8-10 June indicate that “Recycling of nutrients (struvites, stripped nitrogen: requests from MSS)” are on the EGTOP work plan for later in 2022. ESPP has written to the European Commission (DG AGRI) requesting clarification (see www.phosphorusplatform.eu/regulatory, letter of 12/7/2022).This letter further includes precise proposals for text amendments to Annex II of the Organic Farming Regulation 2021/1165 to include the following recycled nutrient products into Annex II of the EU Organic Farming Regulation 2021/1165: Struvite, Calcined phosphates, Recovered elemental sulphur, Bio-sourced adsorbents used to treat wastewaters, Phosphorus-rich pyrolysis and gasification materials (inc. biochars), Algae and algae products grown to treat wastewater, Vivianite, Recovered nitrogen from off-gases.

Source: ESPP