He blockade of the Strait of Hormuz After the attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, it has had consequences that we have noticed from day one, such as the rise in fuel prices. There are others that threaten on the horizon and that are even more fearsome: according to United Nations dataApproximately a third of the world’s fertilizer trade and 20% of global LNG, an essential ingredient for manufacturing nitrogen fertilizers, pass through there.
And fertilizer is providential so that food from the garden and farm reaches our table. Europe, which manufactures most of its fertilizers by burning imported natural gas, found itself overnight with skyrocketing prices and a very dark horizon. With prices 70% higher than in 2024the farmers don’t get the bills. For consumers, it seems clear that filling the shopping basket is going to be more expensive. So the European Commission has a contingency plan: the Fertilizer Action Plan.
A literal shitty alternative. The central proposal from Brussels is to expand the recycling of slurry and agricultural waste to convert them into fertilizer following the program RENURE. The idea is not new: already in 2024 the Commission proposed to modify the Nitrates Directive to allow certain fertilizer materials derived from livestock manure to function as an alternative to chemical fertilizers under certain conditions.
In fact, it is neither new nor sufficient. As MEP Herbert Dorfmann bluntly summarized: “manure can contribute, but it can never replace fertilizers based on urea and nitrogen.” From a technical point of view, this is an incontestable reality: synthetic fertilizers produced through the process of Haber-Bosch They have much higher available nitrogen densities than digestate or processed slurry.
Why it is important. Because the Nitrogen fertilizers are the basis of modern industrial agriculture. Without them, having the supply and quantity of products that we have and at that price would be simply impossible. According to Mosaic Crop Nutrition data For agricultural production in the US, average corn yields would fall by 40% without nitrogen fertilizers. For wheat, long-term studies point to similar drops of 40%. In short, it is the pillar on which the ability to feed the planet’s population is supported.
The fertilizer crisis once again puts Europe’s strategic dependence on the table, in this case on its agriculture, on fossil fuels (from third parties) and everything that its use entails: water, soil and air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and public health risks. Every time there are geopolitical tensions in a gas-producing region, Europe trembles faced with the possibility of being cold or go hungry.
Context. We mentioned being cold because not too long ago Europe looked into the abyss: the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 brought with it an increase in the price of gas and fertilizers, which caused farmers on the old continent to reduce the use of fertilizer (and therefore, lower their yields). At that time the EU put a patch on it and now, four years later, seen in the same scenario and with the same structural problems.
The current plan mentions necessary solutions such as improving nutrient management or promoting organic farming (environmental MEP Thomas Waitz also has said loud and clear that Europe is addicted to fertilizers derived from fossil fuels), but there are no concrete actions or obligations. We insist: RENURE is not something new, when the Commission proposed it a couple of years ago it already had the support of Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania, among others. Of course, its application was at a standstill due to regulatory issues.
How do they want to do it?. The mechanism consists of modifying the EU Nitrates Directive to allow more digestate to be applied to agricultural fields, putting it on a par with mineral fertilizers. The digestate is what remains after fermenting the slurry in biogas plants: it contains nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, although in concentrations and forms of assimilation significantly lower than those of the synthetic fertilizer. In parallel, the plan mentions measures such as improving integrated nutrient management and promoting a transition towards organic agriculture, although without specific commitments or binding calendars.
Yes, but. The big underlying problem is that Europe does not lack nitrogen, quite the opposite. In fact, the EU already has more nitrogen than their soils can safely absorb, which promotes the eutrophication and deterioration of rivers and lakes, in addition to ammonia emissions and contamination of drinking water. Adding more slurry to soils that are already saturated is neither a solution to shortages (and prices) nor is it good for the environment. A recent UNECE report estimates that Europe wastes between €20 billion and €60 billion in nitrogen resources each year, while the environmental and health costs of excess nitrogen pollution reach, according to the European Commission itselfbetween 70,000 and 320,000 million euros annually.
The real solution is to get rid of fossil gas in the long term (and have plans similar to those with oil, with long contracts, diversification and strategic reserves) and bet on alternative technologies such as green ammonia. In this scenario, slurry can play a role in a circular economy, but it is certainly not an emergency patch.
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Cover | Daniel Quiceno M and Markus Spiske
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