Struggles and Incumbent Influence in Policy-Making Surrounding Agri-Food Innovations: Insights from the German Fertilizer Ordinance Reform

Transformative innovations in the agri-food sector are widely considered to hold potential to advance sustainability, resilience, and resource efficiency in agri-food systems. However, agri-food policy research shows that their development and diffusion depend on enabling political and governmental frameworks, often requiring policy change or adjustments to existing regulations. Such reform processes are complex, protracted, and contested, as they are shaped by policy actors who may promote or inhibit political decisions affecting the orientation and implementation of transformative innovations. This paper examines transformative agri-food innovations in the field of nutrient recycling and recovery, focusing on processes through which nutrients are recovered from municipal sewage treatment plants and returned to agriculture as recycled fertilizers. Although a niche market for recycled fertilizers exists in Germany, political and legal debates surrounding their broader integration remain ongoing. Against the background of high fertilizer import dependency, the volatility of fertilizer prices, and limited availability of phosphorus resources, nutrient recycling and recovery hold considerable potential to contribute to more sustainable agri-food systems. At the same time, these innovations are contested among politicians, environmental associations, and industry representatives. While phosphorus recovery from sewage sludge is generally supported, concerns persist regarding the costs of process technologies and the issue of contaminants such as heavy metals and pharmaceutical residues. Current governance frameworks address nutrient recovery primarily through the obligation to recover phosphorus from sewage sludge under the Sewage Sludge Ordinance, whereas nutrient recycling has so far played only a marginal role in reform debates surrounding the German Fertilizer Ordinance. Drawing on agri-food policy research and research on policy entrepreneurship and antipreneurship, this study analyzes the policy struggles surrounding the reform of the German Fertilizer Ordinance as an exemplary case of policy dynamics and conflicts associated with transformative agri-food innovations. Based on a qualitative content analysis of minutes from the Federal Parliament and Federal Council, newspaper articles, and expert interviews, the paper examines how nutrient recycling and recovery are addressed in fertilizer policy debates and analyzes the strategies and tactics of policy actors seeking to promote or prevent their integration into fertilizer legislation. The findings suggest that the integration of nutrient recycling and recovery into agri-food policy is shaped by ongoing and contested policy processes, in which regulatory frameworks across related policy domains remain only weakly aligned. These dynamics affect how transformative innovations are framed, negotiated, and translated into fertilizer legislation, thereby influencing their prospects for broader diffusion and implementation.