16
Feb
2023
Watch
Availability of fertilisers in the EU (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! For over a year, our farmers have been suffering from an explosion of costs on their farms, and these are only partially offset by higher product prices. Fertilizer prices are particularly explosive and important. And, of course, this is partly due to the high energy prices, but it would also be too easy to blame only on energy prices; It is obvious that there has also been and continues to be a market failure. Fertilizer manufacturers in Europe have experienced a golden year 2022 with exceptionally high profits. The increasing concentration of producers in Europe and the associated oligopoly in Europe leads to the fact that, in this crisis, once again the farmers are the varnished. In this situation, we need to find solutions and learn from them. Farmers need short-term support, and the Commission needs to monitor the situation on the market and, if necessary, activate the crisis reserve. We must also suspend import duties on fertilisers in the short term. However, the Commission must also monitor the market better and intervene if there is a market failure, and this is actually quite obvious in this case. And then we need long-term lessons. We need to reduce our dependence on mineral fertilizers. And this is especially in the interest of the farmers themselves. This requires crop rotations with more legumes, and the reformed CAP allows us to promote this as part of a new ecosystem. However, we must also note that the animals kept in Europe and thus the available organic fertiliser are decreasing. However, the animals we still have are concentrated more and more in very few regions of the EU, while in other regions there are hardly any animals left. This then creates zones with areas where there is far too much organic fertiliser – with all the associated negative consequences – and other zones where organic fertiliser is no longer there. And this also shows all those who criticize animal husbandry in Europe again and again how important animal husbandry is, especially for a reasonable fertilizer management. We need a better distribution of animals in Europe and thus a better distribution of organic fertilisers. Every crisis is an opportunity. The chance of this crisis, in my view, is that we will learn again to get better fertilizer cycles in agriculture on the way.