Joint letter to the European Commission

Mr. Günter Verheugen

Vice-President of the European Commission


Call for EU harmonisation on growing media legislation


Dear Vice-President,

We, the undersigned organisations, are calling upon the European Commission to harmonise European rules on growing media. Currently, there is no EU legislation on growing media and our industry is encountering huge barriers when trading its products across Europe. In each member state, growing media must comply with certain technical characteristics laid down by mandatory national provisions. These provisions usually concern the composition and definition of growing media types, the designation of these types, their identification and packaging.

Growing media producers have to comply not only with their national law but also with laws of other EU Member States into which they export or intend to do so. Different product specifications on the label may be required in each member state and these parameters might need to be labelled on the basis of different national analytical methods, making product transparency and comparability difficult (if not impossible) for the consumer. For the growing media producer this means that he must either use different packages or put e.g. 10, 15 or even more different product labels on the package. This is true for the many different growing media on the market today. It increases costs and administration.

An additional factor affecting transparency consists in the continuous changing of national laws across the European Union (France in 2006, Italy in 2007 and 2009 Belgium and Germany in 2008). This requires the producers to regularly review and change their packaging.


Against this background, we the undersigned, strongly urge you to propose a common European legislation on growing media which would facilitate access to the whole European market for growing media producers by creating a basic mandatory common labeling system based on existing EU standards. This would contribute to strengthening the implementation of these standards. CEN TC 223 'Soil Improvers and Growing Media' has developed EN analytical methods and is supportive of this endeavour.

These organizations signed the letter.

European Peat and Growing Media Association (EPAGMA); Jiffy International; Italian Peat and Growing Media Association (A.I.P.S.A); European Farmers-European Agri cooperatives (COPA-COGECA); Neova Sweden; Dutch Peat Association (RHP); German Growing Media Association; Bord ná Móna; Swedish Peat Producers Association; Lithuanian Peat Producers; CAS; Union of Enterprises for the Protection of gardens (UPJ); VAPO; Klasmann-Deilmann; Association of Finnish Peat Industries (AFPI); Belgian Potting Soil Federation (BPF); Griendtsveen; Peltracom; Dutch Association of Growing Media Producers (VPN); German Association of Peat and Growing Media (BTH); Florgard; Latvian Peat Producers Association