Organic farmers in Canada could soon have a new source of phosphorus — one pulled straight from municipal wastewater.
A draft update to Canada’s organic standards proposes allowing struvite, a fertilizer created by crystallizing phosphorus from wastewater, as an approved input on organic farms. The change would open the door for producers to use struvite sourced from municipal water treatment systems, provided it meets strict purity criteria.
“This has been changed to allow struvite as a phosphorus input on organic farms and for farms like my own in western Manitoba, where we don’t have manure readily available,” said Manitoba Organics executive director Marika Dewar-Norosky. “It’s going to be a game changer in being able to buy a renewable source of phosphorus.”
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The Canadian General Standards Board leads the review process, drawing from recommendations by a technical committee made up of industry stakeholders. Part of the process includes a 60-day consultation period, which just ended on July 29. The committee will review any suggestions and make any necessary amendments based on the consultation process. Current organic farming rules allow struvite, just not when sourced from municipal wastewater. However, a March 2025 Canadian Organic Standards backgrounder noted there were no commercially available sources of manure-derived struvite in Canada.
The proposed changes would add municipal wastewater to the list of allowed struvite sources — something previously barred.
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“The hope is that struvite from multiple sources will eventually become available,” it read. “Permitting struvite from municipal waste water provides a source of phosphorus, which is greatly needed for alkaline P-deficient soils.”
Furthermore, the document noted, struvite from municipal waste water is already approved in the European Union.
“This decision was made after extensive study by the Expert Group for Technical Advice on Organic Production and the EU general fertilizer commission, which found this form of struvite to be safe for humans, animals and the environment (subject to purity restrictions),” the document read.
It will also benefit adjacent water bodies, Dewar-Noroski noted.
“This is essentially taking phosphorus out of our waste system that is contributing to things like algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg and allowing farmers to use it in their fields as fertilizer.”
Last year, the City of Winnipeg and fertilizer company Ostara announced that the city waste-water plant upgrades would include nutrient reclaiming technology to generate struvite agricultural fertilizer.
The announcement was pitched as good news for nutrient overloaded Lake Winnipeg, which is a perennial hot button topic in the province and an often-cited schism between agriculture and environmental policy.
Most organic farmers in Manitoba approve of the change in direction, but there is still some hesitation based on possible negative consumer reaction and international trade implications.
“We’re doing a lot of work to really reinforce the education around this being allowed,” said Dewar-Norosky.
Ian Cushon with the Moose Creek Organic Farm Partnership in Oxbow, Sask., is the producer who first proposed bringing struvite to the table. There’s “very little opposition” to this amendment, particularly in parts of Western Canada where low soil phosphorus is a problem, he said.
“There is some concern (about struvite) from Quebec, where there is lots of animal manure available and less issues with low P,” Cushon said via email.
“Quebec and Ontario are unlike the Prairies, where we have a shortage of animal manure for the relatively large amount of organic acres. Of course, that depends on the region and where the organic acres are.”
Prairie soils have abundant phosphorus in some places, but much is unavailable to plants for a number of reasons, he wrote, “and it is a relatively slow process to make P more available without the addition of manure or other outside sources.”
He also pointed to phosphorus trials done in co-operation with the University of Manitoba. Those included struvite, and the fertilizer performed well, he said.
Treated fenceposts to be greenlit
In another proposed change, treated wood fence posts would be allowed as perimeter fencing to keep out wildlife and non-organic livestock. This was previously disallowed based on the toxicity of older wood treatments.
That’s changed somewhat, said Dewar-Norosky. Modern treatments are “far less caustic” than they used to be, and there are also few alternatives for farmers.
“It’s really prohibitive in the Prairies to get non-treated posts such as metal, plastic and concrete,” she said.
“This has been under review for a few years, and this year, (the technical committee) decided that there’s enough evidence to support that fence posts that are treated are allowed as perimeter fencing.… (It’s) going to make installing fencing on organic acres significantly easier.”
The change would only go as far as the perimeter, however. Treated posts would not be allowed for cross-fencing.
Under the draft standards, treated fence posts still cannot come into contact with organic crops, including roots.
“Realistically, your machinery is not going close enough to your fence posts that any contamination in the direct soil won’t be touching your crops,” Dewar-Norosky said.
A slide presented during the virtual Q&A noted that some wood perservatives are still toxic, although less so than the old products.
However, “due to the importance of livestock on an organic farm, and the fact that many organic farms don’t certify their livestock, the allowance for perimeter fencing was made under certain conditions.”
Longer transition period cracks down on organic ‘flip-flopping’
Another amendment increases allowed time for a producer to go back to organic farming after shifting to conventional — from 36 months to five years.
Those who have accidentally broken some organic rules still have 36 months before they can transition back to organic.
“The goal of the system is to have sustainable organic farms that are trying to farm with good, healthy crop rotations — not just gaming the system essentially and threading in and out,” said Dewar-Norosky.
The amendment is intended to make it “a little more difficult” for producers who have gone conventional to regain their organic-certified status, she said.
There are exceptions in cases of accidental non-compliance. Dewar-Norosky would have been among those looking for that exemption at one point.
”I, as a farmer, lost our certification because we were accidentally sprayed. That’s an exception where we waited 36 months. We still had to do the full process, but there was no further penalty. If you intentionally take your crops out of organic, you can’t just wait 36 months and go back to organic.”
The draft copy of the new standards forbids alternating between organic and non-organic management, but with exceptions for “catastrophic” or “uncontrollable factors.”
In these cases, “the operator may take land out of organic management, provided that … the operator submits written notice to the certification body of the intent to alternate and justification of why organic status cannot be maintained, and receives conditional approval prior to the use of substances or methods prohibited by this standard.”
Approval will be based on a written action plan. It must include details of substances and practices to be used, a timeline for transitioning the land back to organic management and a description of how the organic plan will be amended to avoid the issue from happening again, if possible. It also calls for compliance with requirements to transition land back to organic standards.
According to a survey on the exception put out by the Organic Federation of Canada, 59 per cent felt it should be allowed “only in certain situations.” Five per cent thought it should be allowed once and 23 per cent thought it should never be allowed.
Only 12 per cent felt organic farmers should be allowed to switch back and forth between conventional and organic production with a 36-month window in between.
“So generally, the producers that responded to surveys felt strongly that people shouldn’t be moving in and out of organic production,” said Dewar-Norosky.
While the consultation period is over, the draft regulations are available at the Organic Federation of Canada website.
“It goes over all of the changes in another column with rationale explaining why this change was made for every single change,” Dewar-Norosky said.
She also feels consumers and conventional farmers don’t understand how much work and oversight goes into becoming — and remaining — organic producers.
“It includes a field inspection, a grain truck inspection, a signed affidavit that the truck is properly cleaned out by a certified organic holder, so anyone that is holding organic grain also has to be inspected and certified to a processor that is inspected and certified,” she said.
“Every step of the way, everyone that touches that grain has to be inspected and certified to ensure there’s no cross-contamination within our food chain.”
