Standardization and legislative regulations of commercial humic and humic-based products.

Humic substances (HS) are complex, heterogeneous, mixtures of polydisperse components formed by biochemical and chemical reactions during humification processes. HS are major components of the natural organic matter in soil and water as well as in organic rich geological deposits such as lake sediments, peats, brown coals and shales. HS are involved in many processes in soils and natural waters, e.g. soil weathering, plant nutrition, pH buffering, trace metal mobility and toxicity, bioavailability, degradation and transport of hydrophobic organic chemicals, formation of disinfection by-products during water treatment, and heterotrophic production in blackwater ecosystems (web-site http://www.ihss.gatech.edu/ of the International Humic Substances Society). In agriculture HS and HS-based products (solid and liquid) are generally used in plant nutrition: their role in increasing bioavailability of nutrients and biological activities is well supported in scientific literature (1,2). For a proper use of HS it’s fundamental to know their elemental composition as well as some basic features. This information is basically included and well described in scientific papers. In commercial products such data are often lacking. The main reason is that at national and especially at international level (3) the specific rules neglected HS. In fact, it must be kept in mind that even the recent European Regulation 2003/2003 (3) has completely neglected organic and organic-based fertilizers and amendments. At the best the existing rules require the declaration of total content of organic and humic carbon (4). Among others, the Italian Legislative decree 217/06 (5) is one of the most advanced in Europe from this point of view. The need of standardization and regulations of commercial humic and humic-based products is imperative in a modern agriculture and for a market globalization.