This Federal Act concerns the placing on the market of fertilizers, soil additives, culture substrates, plant additives and EU approved fertilising products.
This Federal Act aims at maintaining soil health, soil fertility and the ecosystem in order to ensure a sustainable nutritional basis by providing suitable fertilizer products, taking into consideration circular economy, resource efficiency and the precautionary principle to protect people, animals and the environment.
This Federal Act is divided into four sections and consists of 24 articles. First section provides for general provisions and particularly: scope of application (art. 1); definitions of relevant terms and concepts (art. 2); placing on the market (art. 3); responsibility of manufacturers and distributors who place fertilizer products on the market (art. 4); type approval (art. 5); definition of pollutants and related powers of the Federal Minister for Agriculture (art. 6); labelling and packaging (art. 7); permissible deviations from the market contents set by the Federal Minister for Agriculture (art. 8); issue of approval of fertilizers by the authority and how to fill the application for approval (art. 9); the keeping of a publicly accessible register of fertilizers (art. 10).
Second section (art. 11-19) concerns the official controls, the role of supervisory authorities and their tasks and duties. The organs of the public security service have to provide the supervisory organs with assistance at their request, in case the business owner refuses to cooperate in the investigation; in case of a justified suspicion that fertilizer products does not comply with the content of this Federal Act, the authority may take detailed and proportionate measures in order to eliminate the risk, including seizure or destruction of fertilizer products if this is necessary to safeguard human or animal health, to protect the environment and the ecosystem or to protect consumers from deception. Business owners have to notify the authority the intention to place fertilizer products on the market and facilitate the authorities in the exercise of controls. The section also defines the inspection fee, which is payable only in case of violation of the provisions of this federal law, and fines for administrative violations.
Third section (art. 20-21) concerns the compliance of the law with European regulations, indicates the Austrian customs office as the authority responsible for control of imports, in accordance with the EU Regulation 2019/1020 provisions and authorizes the authority to carry out conformity assessments. The fourth and last section (art. 22-24) concerns final provisions: repeal of previous legislation and transitional provisions and entry into force.