The imposition of a carbon tax on fertilisers imported into the EU has sparked warnings of a possible 2022-style fertiliser crisis across member states.

The EU umbrella group for farm organisations and agri co-ops COPA-COGECA sounded fertiliser market alarm bells due to a more than 80% collapse in January nitrogen fertiliser imports.

COPA-COGECA said that a January 2026 import figure of just under 180,000t of nitrogen fertilisers imports appears as a “harsh reality that is now knocking at the EU’s door”.

ADVERTISEMENT

The equivalent chemical nitrogen fertiliser import figure for January 2025 was 1.18m tonnes.

Nitrogen fertiliser makes up just under a half of all chemical fertilisers used in EU countries and around one in every three tonnes of the product used is imported into the EU.

The group maintains that the collapse in imports can be put down to the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) imposed on fertilisers and other emissions-heavy products imported into the EU since January.

CBAM was pitched by the European Commission as a means of levelling the playing field between EU industry and manufacturing outside the EU.

It is a tax paid on imports in a bid to reduce the impact that EU carbon taxes have on the ability of EU industry to compete with imports from countries that do not tax emissions to the same extent that it does.

However COPA-COGECA wants the implementation of CBAM put on ice due to the January drop in fertiliser imports.

“Among the key demands voiced in the December and January protests were postponing CBAM implementation for fertilisers until technical conditions ensure price predictability at import and invoicing, avoiding supply disruptions throughout the chain, and introducing long-term measures to offset CBAM-related costs for farmers,” the group has said.

“The data now leave no room for doubt. When imports collapse by more than 80%, when prices continue to rise and availability becomes uncertain, this is no longer a theoretical concern.

“It is an immediate risk to EU agricultural production and food security.”