While Brussels focuses on farmers’ protests, trade agreements, and environmental demands, one of the most important pressure points in European agriculture is being largely ignored.
In recent months, rising prices and shifting regulations have created a serious problem for thousands of farmers, trapped between rising costs and ever-shrinking margins.
This helps explain the growing anger across rural Europe. Nitrogen, phosphate, and potash fertilizers—the essential inputs for modern farming—sit at the centre of a perfect storm: sanctions, tariffs, trade restrictions, and environmental rules which, taken together, are eroding the competitiveness of European farmers.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the EU has increasingly treated fertilizers as a political tool. The recurring threat to sanction Russian and Belarusian fertilizers, which cover a significant share of European demand, is not just hypothetical. Sector analyses themselves estimate that further restrictions would raise the EU’s fertilizer bill by around €4 billion, with a direct impact on production costs and final food prices. Higher input costs are already forcing farmers to cut back on fertilizer use, reducing yields.
The pressure is already visible on the ground. Fertilizer prices in Europe remain roughly 20% above last year’s levels, while key products such as urea are priced at double their 2020 levels. Many farms are therefore cutting fertilizer use, risking smaller harvests. Lower output then feeds through into higher prices, adding to inflation and increasing the risk of food shortages.
European domestic policy compounds the problem. The Nitrates Directive and other regulations, designed to limit the environmental impact of fertilizer use, add extra costs and restrict how farmers can operate—at a time when they have little room to manoeuvre.
European farmers must comply with strict requirements that are not imposed on many producers in third countries, whose products then enter the EU market.
Most striking of all is that restricting external suppliers has failed to boost Europe’s own fertilizer industry. On the contrary, it has consolidated a market with less competition, benefiting a very limited number of EU producers.
Sector sources warn that removing Russian fertilizers from the European market would give a direct advantage to large industrial groups, without translating into improved supply or lower prices for farmers.
This protectionist bias has been sharply criticised by farming organisations. Copa-Cogeca has denounced EU agricultural policies as little more than “smoke and mirrors, while the European Council of Young Farmers warns that new generations are being pushed out of agriculture by a combination of rising costs and declining profitability.
Rather than achieving the promised goal of “strategic autonomy,” the EU is exposing itself to growing dependence on other global actors. China, which controls nearly 30% of global phosphate supplies, has sharply curtailed its exports, further tightening an already fragile market. By closing some doors while failing to strengthen domestic production, Europe is leaving itself vulnerable to new external bottlenecks.
