The UK’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) is moving ahead with plans to implement rules for ammonia mitigation with solid urea fertilizers, requiring all farmers in England to use inhibitors or other permitted forms of mitigation after April 1, 2024.

However, the department has agreed with the National Farmers Union (NFU) and industry partners that self-regulation by the farming industry will work best for enforcement. The guidelines will be applied through the UK’s Red Tractor Assurance Standard, a food chain assurance scheme that underpins the high standards of British food and drink.

The commitment made with the government is that by 2024-2025 all farmers in England will be able to meet the new requirements and all fertilizer containing urea will have to be protected against ammonia emissions if spread after April 1 each year.

This will apply unless ammonia mitigation has been achieved by incorporating the fertilizers into the soil or with sufficient irrigation, as determined by a registered qualified professional for the Fertiliser Advisers Certification & Training Scheme (FACTS), a nationally validated course developed by the UK fertilizer industry as a form of self-regulation.

“We believe working together across the industry to deliver greater nitrogen use efficiency for all nitrogen fertilizers is the best route forward,” said Robert Sheasby, CEO of the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC), a UK trade association representing the agricultural supply chain sectors of arable marketing, crop protection and agronomy, feed, fertilizer, and seeds.

“By utilizing existing farm assurance structures, farmers will be able to retain the use of solid urea, providing flexibility to use the right product at the right time to minimize environmental impact, whilst ensuring healthy plant growth and a competitive fertilizer sector,” he said.

The Minister of State for Food, Farming, and Fisheries earlier warned that the government would impose regulations if farm leaders failed to introduce an industry scheme to reduce ammonia emissions. The regulation was due to come into effect last year, but due to soaring fertilizer prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Defra agreed to delay implementation until April 1, 2023 (GM April 1, 2022). In February this year, the department agreed to delay the implementation by a further year (GM Feb. 3, p. 28).

After originally considering a potential total ban on the use of solid urea fertilizer in the UK, Defra decided on an alternative approach put forward by industry that untreated urea could be used by farmers from Jan. 15 to March 31 each year, but any product spread after April 1 would have to be treated with a urease inhibitor to slow the release of ammonia.

The UK consumed some 137,000 mt of dry urea for fertilizer use in 2020, according to the latest IFA data. The country has no domestic urea production, and demand is currently met entirely by imports.