24 years of Fertiliser Ordiance - what has been achieved?

At the beginning of this year, German Bundestag and Bundesrat passed the new Fertiliser Ordinance, accompanied by partly vehement protests from the agricultural lobby. 24 years of the Fertiliser Ordinance in its various versions have caused no positive effect on the nitrogen load in water bodies in the past. The surplus of the agricultural soil surface budget still amounts to 1.32 million tons N (average 2016-2018), corresponding to 79 kg N/ha utilised agricultural area. For the time series 1995 to 2018, the nitrogen surplus does not show a decline. In the districts with high livestock numbers, the nitrogen surpluses have even increased further. The percentage of groundwater monitoring sites with nitrate concentration above the threshold of 50 mg NO3/I has also not decreased noticeably since 1996. In German coastal waters, the "good ecological status" according to the Water Framework Directive is still not achieved due to the high nitrogen loads of rivers discharging into the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Whether the regulations of the new Fertilizer Ordinance will actually lead to a distinct reduction in nitrogen inputs to water bodies will only become apparent in a few years at the earliest. The Fertiliser Ordinance must be amended by a Material Flow Balance Ordinance that limits the farm nitrogen surplus effectively.