National Irish Perspective on Fertilising Products
National Irish Perspective on Fertilising Products
On the 19th of September 2024 Kerona Scientific held its second Dublin Fertiliser Symposium and had the privilege to hear from the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM), as Colin Murtagh and Maria Destefanis presented the “National Irish Perspective on Fertilising Products”.
Colin’s section of the presentation gave an overview on the Irish perspective on the marketing and sale of fertilisers. Colin discussed the 3 ways for selling fertiliser in Ireland: Irish National Legislation; Mutual Recognition and under the FPR. Specifically Irish national fertiliser regulation is governed by the Fertilisers, Feeding Stuffs and Mineral Mixtures Act 1955, the statutory instrument (SI) No 248/1978 – Marketing of Non-EEC Fertilisers Regulation and its amendment: SI 205/2004. Ireland is currently reviewing the existing National legislation to align it more with the FPR. Finally, Colin discussed the Fertilisers Administrative Cooperation (AdCo) group which aims to guarantee proper and uniform application of the provisions of the legislation within the single market. They also identify issues of shared interest relating to market surveillance and establish appropriate communication channels between national administrations and the European Commission.
Maria’s section of the presentation focused specifically on the new National Fertiliser Database (NFD) in Ireland which is a novel system that isn’t found in other EU Member States (except for Denmark). The aim of the NFD is to provide accurate tracking of sales throughout the supply chain, provide an accurate picture of where fertiliser is being used, provide data for monitoring climate targets. The NFD will help in informing policy and monitoring scheme compliance. Since the 1st of September 2023 it is an offence to sell or purchase fertiliser without being registered on the NFD. Any imports of fertiliser into the ROI must be notified within 72 hours and all data on fertiliser transactions must be recorded by Fertiliser Economic Operators. So far, the DAFM has seen great uptake in the use of the NFD with registrations reaching over 125,000 users as of August 2024 demonstrating significant compliance and engagement with the system. The NFD is already providing valuable information such as behavioural change on the use of fertilisers. The DAFM is hoping to eventually expand the system across the entire island to include Northern Ireland.
More information on the NFD can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/98355-national-fertiliser-database/
If you need assistance with the registration of fertilising products in the EU, please do not hesitate to contact the experts at Kerona at info@kerona.ie