EU increasingly food dependent on Russia, fertiliser company CEO warns

Europe is more food dependent on Moscow now than we were before the war, with the bloc replacing energy dependency with fertiliser dependency, the CEO and president of Norwegian chemical company Yara warned.

“We’ve clearly seen how Russia or Putin is using fertiliser and food as weapons,” Yara’s CEO, Svein Tore Holsether, told journalists on Thursday (11 December), adding that “we should not be naive as to what could happen next” with food.

“We cannot be surprised if we will have shocks [in the sector],” he added.

According to Eurostat data presented in the margins of the meeting, total nitrogen imports into the EU were up 34% in the 2022-23 fertilisers marketing campaign (July-June) compared to the previous period, with Russia accounting for around a third of the total.

Urea imports were up 53%, doubling the volumes recorded in 2020-2021. Of this, 40% came from Moscow. The trend has slowed in the current season, but Russian urea still accounts for almost a third of the total imports.

“Europe has been able to reduce the energy dependency on Russia in a really short period of time,” Holsether said, “but it has also come at a cost, both for households and industries, which have been huge”.

“I would be very worried – he continued – if we sleepwalk into repeating the exact same thing on fertiliser as we do and as we did on energy,” the CEO said.

Increasing dependency has an environmental impact as well, Holsether pointed out.

By substituting European fertilisers with those from Russia or other parts of the world, the EU is importing fertilisers with a much higher carbon footprint – “50-60% higher than the European production,” he warned.

The CEO described 2024 as “a decisive year” for the EU in taking action that will define the next decade in agriculture, calling for incentives for farmers to facilitate their ability to make environmentally-friendly choices while maintaining production levels.

Holsether reiterated calls for the establishment of a “predictable funding framework” for the EU industry, in line with the US Inflation Reduction Act, the US subsidy scheme to support the green transition.

Further calls

Fertiliser production is energy-intensive and highly dependent on fossil fuels, especially gas. According to experts, 15-20 years will be needed to phase out fossil-based fertilisers and switch to bio-based solutions. But it can be done with the right incentives.

The Latvian delegation to the European Council has requested a debate on “sanctions against imported Russian agricultural products” at the next EU farm ministers meeting, scheduled on 23 January.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

Read more with Euractiv

EU's top Court goes down-to-earth on overfishing rules

Contrary to usual practice, the EU Court of Justice overturned the advice of its Advocate General, whose legal reasoning had backed NGOs calling for restricting the flexibility for ministers in the EU's annual regulation on fishing quotas.