Oilseed cakesand meals: ensuring equivalent treatment for all oilseed cakes and meals under the EU Fertilising Products Regulation
December 7, 2021 by Jessica Fitch
Executive Summary
When vegetable oils are extracted from oilseeds, they leave behind cakes or meals that are used to produce food, feed and fertilising products. Oilseeds cakes/meals are a valuable source of organic nitrogen and carbon for organic-based fertilizers, contain other nutrients and may be used for their functional properties (solubility/emulsions, etc.). While some oilseeds are cold-pressed, most are treated with solvents (usually hexane) to extract as much of the high-value oil from the seeds as possible. (See sections I and II for more information.) Today, oilseed cakes, including those obtained through the use of solvents, are allowed to be used in fertilising products under national rules across the European Union, including in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Because they are substances obtained from natural sources that have not been chemically modified and do not meet the criteria for classification as dangerous according to Directive 67/548/EEC, oilseed cakes/meals are exempted from REACH registration according to Paragraph 9 of Annex V of Regulation (EC) 1907/2006. The vegetable oils that are obtained through solvent-based extraction are explicitly listed in this paragraph.
However, none of the Component Materials Categories of the Regulation (EU) 2019/1009 [Fertilising Products] accommodates the use of oilseed cakes/meals obtained through solvent-based extraction as Component Materials in EU Fertilising Products. (See section V for more information.) To remedy this, ECOFI suggests modifying CMC 2 as follows:
“An EU fertilising product may contain plants, plant parts or plant extracts having undergone no other processing than cutting, grinding, milling, sieving, sifting, centrifugation, pressing, drying, frost treatment, freeze-drying or extraction with water or supercritical CO2 extraction. Oilseed cakes or meals that were obtained through the use of solvents may also be incorporated in EU fertilising products if the component material is explicitly covered by the registration obligation exemption provided for by point 9 of Annex V to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006.”
ECOFI also recommends modifying the labelling requirements in Annex III, Part I, Paragraph 5 of the Fertilising Products Regulation as follows: Oilseed cakes and the FPR | final │ 3 June 2020 │ Page 2 “Where the EU fertilising product contains any substance listed in Annex I of Directive 2002/32/EC on undesirable substances in animal feed in quantities higher than the Maximum Content indicated in that directive, the following instruction shall be provided on the label: ‘Hazardous to animals in case of ingestion’.” This will allow for a consistent and fair treatment of all oilseed cakes/meals.