Irish farmers demand suspension of CBAM on nitrogen fertiliser

The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) demanded on August 18, 2026 the suspension of CBAM on imported nitrogen fertiliser, saying it is fertiliser costs that "will have a severe negative effect on agriculture and food production across the EU and Ireland in particular." IFA Farm Business Chair Bill O'Keeffe wants the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, to push for an EU-wide suspension and to deliver promised national co-financing for fertiliser costs farmers have already incurred. The statement reopens the fertiliser front ahead of the European Parliament's September plenary vote on the CBAM review, five weeks after the association's July call to restore the deleted emergency safeguard.

Fertilizers are one of the six sectors in the definitive phase of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, alongside steel, cement, aluminium, electricity, and hydrogen, and certificate costs have applied to non-EU fertiliser imports since January 1, 2026 at the 2.5 percent CBAM factor. The IFA's core argument is that those costs settle on farmers rather than on the importers who formally owe them. The association's July move in this fight, alongside rival steel and aluminium demands, is covered in the industry battle lines before the September plenary.

What the IFA demanded on August 18

The IFA wants two things: an immediate EU-wide suspension of CBAM on nitrogen fertiliser, and Irish government co-financing to offset CBAM-driven fertiliser costs farmers have already paid. Both demands are addressed to Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon, who the statement says needs to do all he can to secure the suspension at EU level.

"This EU taxation of a key agriculture input, especially for a grass-based country like Ireland, risks driving fertiliser prices significantly higher at a time when farm incomes are already under significant pressure," O'Keeffe said. The association leaves no room for a reformed mechanism: "The IFA are completely opposed to the imposition of CBAM on fertiliser, a tax that will ultimately be borne by farmers."

The statement contains two concrete asks:

• Seek suspension: Minister Heydon is to press for an immediate suspension of CBAM on nitrogen fertiliser across the EU, not an Irish exception
• Deliver co-financing: the statement puts the ask at 200 percent co-financing to supplement the €15 million allocated from the EU under the fertiliser support package, compensating costs already incurred since January

CBAM is legally a certificate obligation priced at the EU ETS quarterly average, not a tax or a tariff. The distinction matters little to the buyer of a tonne of urea, because the certificate cost arrives inside the import price either way, which is precisely the IFA's point.

Why the IFA says farmers cannot pass the cost through

The IFA argues that farmers are price takers who cannot pass CBAM costs down the food chain, so higher fertiliser prices convert directly into lower usage, lower yields, and reduced output. "We are ultimately price takers in the food production model and there will be no opportunity to pass back this significant additional production cost," O'Keeffe said.

The production consequence follows in the statement's starkest line: "Higher fertiliser costs will inevitably lead to reduced usage, lower crop yields and a contraction in output across both the tillage and livestock sectors." Ireland's grass-based livestock system depends on nitrogen fertiliser more than most EU farm economies, which is why the association frames a fertiliser levy as a food production issue rather than an input pricing issue.

Carbon Pulse, a subscription carbon markets news service, covered the statement on August 19 and set it against Ireland's prolonged drought, framing the CBAM cost as a compounding blow to farm incomes already squeezed by the dry season. The drought framing is Carbon Pulse's; the IFA statement itself argues from input costs and pass-through, not weather.

What CBAM adds to a tonne of nitrogen fertiliser

A tonne of imported urea carries roughly 2.5 tCO₂e of embedded emissions, so a fully phased-in CBAM would add about €188 at the Q2 2026 certificate price of €75.28/tCO₂e, while the 2026 CBAM factor of 2.5 percent keeps the current added cost under €5 per tonne. The table below breaks down the cost mechanics for urea, the most emission-intensive nitrogen fertiliser under CBAM.

The number that alarms the IFA is not the 2026 figure but the trajectory. Free allocation stands at 97.5 percent in 2026 and phases out to zero by January 1, 2034, so the certificate share of the full €188 grows every year. The CBAM urea page explains why 2.5 tCO₂e/t makes urea the costliest fertiliser to import, and the wider CBAM fertilizers guide covers the full calculation, including N₂O and the indirect electricity emissions that fertilizers price but steel and aluminium do not. Importers can model their own tonnages with the CBAM cost calculator. The reference price itself is moving: the Q3 CBAM certificate price is tracking six to eight euros above Q2 at the quarter's halfway mark.

A suspension demand with no legal clause to carry it

No suspension mechanism for fertilisers currently exists in the CBAM review text, because ENVI deleted the Article 27a emergency-brake clause from its position on July 6, 2026, so the IFA demand needs either a plenary amendment in September or a Council win in trilogues. The Commission's December 2025 review proposal, COM(2025)989, contained the clause; Parliament's environment committee replaced it with a mechanism that redirects CBAM revenues to sectors hit by severe market disruption, as set out in ENVI's CBAM review position.

The safeguard fight has run through five stages, listed below.

The August statement escalates the July position. Murphy asked for a legal instrument that would allow suspension during exceptional market disruption; O'Keeffe demands the suspension itself. Neither is adopted law, and nothing in the ENVI position or the IFA demand changes what fertiliser importers owe today.

The demand also lands in a crowded week for the review file, with pressure arriving from opposite directions: a coalition of 500 signatories wants CBAM extended to downstream products as a protest convoy heads for Brussels, while BRICS condemns CBAM as punitive and protectionist from outside the Union. The September plenary will hear demands to widen the mechanism, pause it, and suspend it, all aimed at the same file.

What fertiliser importers should do now

Nothing in the IFA statement changes current obligations: CBAM applies to fertiliser imports, certificate sales open February 1, 2027, and the first annual declaration is due September 30, 2027, covering calendar year 2026. Three checkpoints follow for fertiliser supply chains.

1. Watch the September plenary vote, which decides whether any suspension mechanism returns to Parliament's negotiating position
2. Keep collecting embedded emissions data from suppliers, following the CBAM compliance for fertilizer importers workflow from declaration through certificate surrender
3. Budget certificates against a rising reference price rather than the flat €75 of the first half of 2026

Non-EU producers selling into Ireland and the rest of the EU face the mirror image of the importers' problem. The CBAM impact on fertilizer exporters guide maps country exposure, including the Russia sanctions overlap and Egypt's export concentration, and explains the N₂O calculation that makes fertiliser emissions reporting harder than steel's.