Harmonizing European standards on biostimulants: the Technical Committee meets in ILSA

Last October 18, 2022 ILSA hosted a meeting of Working Group 4 of the Technical Committee 455 of the CEN - European Committee for Standardization. This technical commission's objective is to define harmonized standards for biostimulants per the new European regulation on fertilizers, which came into application in all EU states starting last July 2022. These standards describe methods of manufacturing EU fertilizers to be placed on the market. These standards are approved and shared by CEN, to comply with the obligations, in terms of efficacy and safety, and can therefore be used both by manufacturers in the drafting of the technical documentation for conformity assessment and by the authorities to exact official controls on the market.

In April of this year, the technical specifications of these methods were published https://www.cencenelec.eu/news-and-events/news/2022/eninthespotlight/2022-04-21-cen-published-82-new-technical-specifications-on-fertilizing-products/ for all EU fertilising products, including organic and bio-waste-based products, thus contributing to the EU objectives on circular economy. Working Group 4 deals specifically with safety parameters and essentially with methods for determining heavy metals in biostimulants. The committee is in the first draft of the standards that will be published by April 2024. Chiara Manoli, head of the Regulatory area, and Alberto Bevilacqua, a researcher at ILSA, are the project leader and expert, respectively, for the method for determining Cr (VI) in biostimulants.

Working Group 4 deals specifically with safety parameters and essentially with methods for determining heavy metals in biostimulants. The committee is in the first draft of the standards that will be published by April 2024. Chiara Manoli, head of the Regulatory area, and Alberto Bevilacqua, a researcher at ILSA, are the project leader and expert, respectively, for the method for determining Cr (VI) in biostimulants.

In the picture, the Working Group 4 of the Technical Committee 455 of the CEN during the meeting in ILSA, last October 18. Front row from left: Beata Cebere (Acadian Plant Health/NBN Belgium), Chiara Manoli (Ilsa/UNI, Italy), Chiara Povolo (Sicit/UNI, Italy), Eva Cizmarova (UKZUZ/UNMZ, Czech Republic), Jiri Zbiral (UKZUZ/UNMZ, Czech Republic) Secondo row from left: Stefan Krebs (ČAS, Czech Republic – Secretariat of the CEN TC 455/WG 4), Jan Sadílek (UKZUZ/UNMZ, Czech Republic), Miroslav Florian (UKZUZ/UNMZ, Czech Republic – Convenor of the CEN TC 455/WG 4), Martin Vana (UKZUZ/UNMZ, Czech Republic), Stéphanie Tiprez (Afaia/AFNOR, France), Gianluca Bini (Biolchim/UNI, Italy)