The U.K.’s Department for Environment & Rural Affairs (Defra) has decided to delay the implementation of restrictions on the use of solid urea fertilizer in the country until April 2023, at the earliest, due to the current uncertainty around fertilizer supply and the impacts this is having on prices.
In the meantime, Defra will continue to monitor effects on supply, prices, and food security, the government department said in a March 30 statement.
Defra had been looking at a potential total ban on the use of solid urea fertilizer in the U.K. as the preferred option among two others, amid concerns that ammonia emissions from solid urea fertilizer use are harmful to the environment and to human health.
But the department decided upon an alternative approach incorporating the two alternate options rather than a total ban. Once implemented, it will restrict the use of untreated or unprotected urea fertilizers from Jan. 15 to March 31 each year, with the use of urease inhibitor-treated (a chemical that helps to slow the conversion of urea to ammonium) or protected urea fertilizers throughout the rest of the year.
Defra launched its original consultation in November 2020 (GM Nov. 6, 2020). The government department had argued that a ban on solid urea fertilizers would achieve around 31 percent of the ammonia reduction target by 2030.
The U.K. government committed itself to reducing ammonia emissions by 8 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, with a 16 percent reduction targeted by 2030.
The country’s Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC), a trade association representing the agricultural supply chain sectors of arable marketing, crop protection and agronomy, feed, fertilizer, and seeds, had argued that a total ban on the sale and use of solid urea fertilizer was unwarranted (GM Feb. 12, 2021).
The U.K’s National Farmers Union (NFU) also had urged Defra to adopt an “industry-regulated approach” to solid urea fertilizer rather than a total ban, which it had said would have a “huge impact” on farmers’ ability to produce food (GM Jan. 29, 2021).
The country has no domestic urea production, and imports all its urea requirements. It imported 715,166 mt in 2021, down from 873,192 the previous year, according to Trade Data Monitor.