EU “Safemanure” (RENURE) report published

The European Commission has published the final JRC “Safemanure” report (now termed REcovered Nitrogen from manURE = RENURE), proposing criteria to authorise manure-derived recycled fertilising products to be used above the 170 kgN/ha for manure-derived nitrogen fixed by the Nitrates Directive.

This is absolutely not (proposed) “End-of-Manure” criteria, in that RENURE materials will remain be subject to specific management and use constraints (additional to those applicable to mineral fertilisers) to be fixed regionally for each Nitrates Vulnerable Zone by each Member State, concerning “timing and application rates …, good agro-environmental practices …ammonium emissions on field … and emissions to air resulting from storage”.

The RENURE criteria also do not give an Animal By-Product End Point. Traceability and identification of RENURE materials as manure-derived will therefore be necessary.

In addition to these specific regional use criteria, RENURE materials must have a TOC:TN ratio ≤ 3 or a mineral N:TN ratio ≥ 90%. The JRC report suggests that such materials “have a similar N leaching potential and agronomic efficiency to Haber-Bosch derived and equivalent chemical N fertilisers, when applied under good management practices”.

ESPP input to the RENURE process underlined that these criteria effectively penalise organic carbon input to soil: ESPP suggested that the stability of the TOC should be taken into account. ESPP also noted that materials such as 90% raw manure spiked with 10% urea would pass the criteria, as do some raw manures and most liquid fractions of manures.

At this stage, these criteria are a JRC (EU Joint Research Centre) technical proposal which must now be validated by the Member States (EU Nitrates Committee) and will then face the risk of possible legal challenges, in that some environmental or agricultural NGOs and some Member States may consider that this is an attempt to facilitate intensive livestock production and allow increased manure spreading in nutrient surplus regions by circumventing the provisions of the Nitrates Directive to limit spreading of nitrogen, art. 2(g) “excreted by livestock or a mixture of litter and waste products excreted by livestock, even in processed form"