The EU has proposed cutting the import duties on nitrogen fertiliser by one third. This is its first response to the IFA’s challenge to the anti-dumping taxes applied on competitively priced Russian nitrogen. They are in place 23 years and cost Irish and EU farmers about €35/t on high-nitrogen fertilisers.

However, the IFA, backed by the other big EU farm organisations, this week warned the EU’s trade investigation team at a meeting in Brussels that the partial cut would still effectively exclude imports and that farmers would continue to suffer high prices. It again formally demanded that the tariffs be fully abolished.

Import price

Alternatively, the EU should scrap the duties and replace them with a minimum import price, it said. That should be set at a level giving manufacturers an 8% profit margin, which would allow lower prices for farmers.

The Commission’s investigation has itself established that EU fertiliser producers are very profitable.

The IFA delegation, led by its president Joe Healy and inputs chair John Coughlan, told Commission officials that Irish and EU farm incomes were in a very difficult situation and that EU farmers have lost competitiveness and export market share due to high fertiliser prices.

EU fertiliser manufacturers continue to lobby strongly to have the duties remain in place. Among the EU trade investigation team’s findings were that if the anti-dumping duty was abolished, fertiliser manufacturers could again suffer unfair competition.

The anti-dumping duties are levied at up to €47/t on ammonium nitrate which is the key ingredient in CAN.

The EU trade team/court will make its final decision in November.