On 16 and 17 January 2024, the European Biogas Association (EBA) attended the 3rd Summit of the Organic and organo-mineral Fertilisers Industries in Europe (SOFIE3), the only industry meeting place for organic-carbon-based fertiliser producers, distributors, advisory, technology suppliers.
EBA’s participation to the event included on the one hand, a presentation by Lucile Sever, Policy Officer in charge of circular economy dossiers on recycling nutrients and regenerating soil with digestate, with insights on the FER-PLAY regulatory analysis, which was very well received, and on the other hand, a presentation of the FER-PLAY poster below, by Marina Pasteris, Policy Officer in charge of digestate and biohydrogen dossiers.
The poster aims to present the objectives of the FER-PLAY project and the different four steps that constitute its methodology. During the first phase of the project, partners analysed 61 different alternative fertilisers value chains and after an overview of data availability, the inherent qualities of the fertilisers, their ability to comply with EU standards and legislation, as well as their potential for replication at industrial scale, including transport and storage, they selected 7 alternative fertiliser value chains to focus the analyses of the FER-PLAY project on, which are summarised in the poster.
A Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) is currently being conducted by partners to consider all inputs and outputs that a selected fertiliser value chain incurs along its life cycle. They focus on three European regions: Northern, Central, and Mediterranean countries. FER-PLAY thus evaluates at every stage of their life cycle and for the 7 selected alternative fertilisers value chains, the consumption and emission of materials and energy (E-LCA), the cost at every stage (LCC), and the social risks (S-LCA). This assessment is being carried out hand in hand with the various stakeholders in the value chain with the aim of involving all perspectives.
In September 2024, when the assessment tasks will be completed, partners will publish reports on these analyses. Meanwhile, check already available public reports and the FER-PLAY database. From FER-PLAY, we keep working on increasing the acceptance of alternative fertilisers and fostering their market uptake for a more sustainable agriculture.
