From Advocacy to Action: How EBIC Is Shaping the Future of Plant Biostimulants in Europe
November 2026
EBIC works to promote the role of plant biostimulants in building a competitive, resilient and sustainable future for European agriculture. EBIC actively identifies and addresses issues in the plant biostimulants market. As the agricultural landscape faces unprecedented challenges, including climate change, market volatility, and the need for more sustainable practices, EBIC’s advocacy work is critical in ensuring that biostimulants are recognised as essential tools for modern agriculture.
EBIC helps plant biostimulant producers unlock the European market through regulatory advocacy, working to get farmers the products they need to build resilience and competitiveness. Our regulatory work covers issues such as the pathway for the use of microorganisms in plant biostimulants, opening the single market to plant biostimulants derived from animal by-products, and ensuring recognition of multiple use. To achieve these regulatory changes, EBIC works with our members, ensuring their scientific and agronomic expertise reaches policymakers where it matters, building a flexible and innovation-forward regulatory landscape.
A recent focus for EBIC has been the Commission’s simplification work on plant biostimulants and fertilising products. Despite plant biostimulants being regulated under the Fertilising Products Regulation (FPR 1009/2019), many safe, effective products remain excluded from the EU single market due to regulatory inconsistencies. EBIC’s regulatory outreach centres on addressing these regulatory barriers and inconsistencies, and, more recently, includes work related to the Chemicals Omnibus VI. EBIC’s work has helped secure a criteria-based pathway for new microorganisms and more proportionate REACH requirements under the FPR.
The Chemicals Omnibus VI is awaiting formal Council adoption and publication in the Official Journal of the EU. It will reduce regulatory barriers and create opportunities for more products to reach the EU’s single market, with further delegated acts needed to make the new microbial pathway operational. It also delivers two of EBIC’s main simplification objectives for the FPR since its publication in 2019: a criteria-based pathway for new micro-organisms to be used in microbial plant biostimulants, and significantly more proportionate and workable REACH requirements for chemical substances used in EU fertilising products. Moving forward, EBIC will continue to work on the implementation of these simplification measures through supporting the development of the criteria and methodology for new microbial strains and engaging with policymakers on the implementation of the revised REACH requirements.
These achievements reflect years of sustained EBIC advocacy. Dedicated workshops on microorganisms and REACH, evidence from member companies and concrete simplification proposals helped put these changes on the Commission’s agenda. EBIC then engaged with the European Commission, Parliament and Member States throughout the negotiations to defend these priorities and secure workable provisions for plant biostimulant producers. This demonstrates the value of collective advocacy: turning the regulatory barriers experienced by individual companies into changes to EU legislation.
EBIC continues to address regulatory barriers affecting the use of animal by-products in plant biostimulants, including through advocacy for improvements to the Animal By-Products Regulation and the FPR. More broadly, EBIC works with its members to shape current and future delegated acts covering animal by-products, new component materials and microorganisms. These detailed rules are critical to enabling market access, and EBIC brings members’ expertise into their development to ensure that requirements are proportionate, workable and keep pace with innovation.
Membership gives companies a direct role in shaping this work, bringing their priorities and expertise into the decisions that affect product development, investment and market access.