News

More use of organic and waste-based fertilisers is now possible thanks to new EU rules governing fertilising products such as liming materials, soil improvers, growing agents, plant bio-stimulants and blends.

The new EU regulation on fertilising products promotes sustainable agriculture in support of the European Green Deal’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies. These rules have been introduced to help reduce the environmental impact of fertilisers, limit their risk to human health as well as reduce Europe’s dependency on imported fertilisers. They address safety, quality and labelling requirements that companies producing and selling such fertilisers will need to comply with allowing their products to be freely traded across the EU without additional formalities. A Guidance document on the labelling of EU fertiliser products is available to support businesses with the implementation of new rules.

Our ENRD Thematic Group (TG) work is taking a break during August and we will return with more thematic work starting soon covering key CAP topics regarding Strengthening the position of farmers in the Organic Food Supply Chain and Landscape Features and Biodiversity.

Latest outputs from our recent TGs’ work are still being prepared and published. This includes a series of Sustainability Agreements case studies, good practice examples and a conclusions paper available in the ‘Publications’ section of the Sustainability Agreements TG webpage. You can also keep an eye on the Carbon Farming TG webpage for new publications and resources featuring a collection of good practices, a TG Factsheet on the topic, video interviews with TG members, and Highlights reports from this TG’s meetings.

Outputs on our website from the Rural Revitalisation TG cover a report on Enabling factors for rural revitalisation & a self-assessment tool for policy design, a Spanish case study about the regional law in Castilla-La Mancha to combat rural depopulation, and TG recommendations for the Rural Revitalisation Platform. Rural proofing TG members produced a working document providing a framework of rural proofing actions. This complements the TG’s other published materials such as key considerations for rural proofing actions at different levels and an analytical overview of rural proofing approaches with lessons learned. Last but not least, the Highlights report from our LEADER TG second meeting has now been published.

Soil is essential for food security and life overall, but many risks exist to the quantity and quality of EU soil stocks. CAP funding can help reduce these risks and two young organic farmers from Malta took advantage of such an opportunity to co-finance their investment in soil protection measures.

Wind and rain erosion pose problems for soil protection in Malta. Simple solutions exist including the use of walls and trees as windbreaks. This was the thinking behind a project by Abigail and David Galea who renovated stone walls and planted olive tree stands on their organic farm to reduce soil erosion risks.

Traditional construction techniques were used to restore the dry-stone walls, which provide landscape features as well as biodiversity habitats while protecting soils from wind erosion. The olive trees not only help better bond the soil, and so limit threats from rainwater run-off, but they also provide a nutritious food crop and add to the islands’ green infrastructure. Read more about this multi-purpose CAP project supporting the prosperity of a young farming couple’s business while simultaneously protecting soil stocks on EU islands.

The ENRD is launching a new Thematic Group (TG) on Landscape Features and Biodiversity. This TG will be an opportunity to identify ways in which farmers may be encouraged to see landscape features as adding value to their operations and overcome challenges to uptake.

This new TG will explore how landscape features may be protected, maintained, created and restored using a range of CAP interventions within different MS. Best practices will be shared on how MS have supported landscape features’ retention and creation in the past and how better data and targeted support may lessen habitat fragmentation and increase biodiversity.  

Both meetings will be held in virtual from on 13 October and 15 December 2022. You can register your interest to join the TG here.