Agricultural Fertiliser and Feed: Rising Costs

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for securing this important debate. I note my interests as a Devon farmer and a lawyer working for a firm with an agricultural law practice.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, highlighted the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from the devastation on the ground to the blockade of the Black Sea, which has held hostage so much of the world’s wheat, sunflowers and other key food commodities on which so many rely. As we focus our attentions on the unprecedented impact of these events on our own food and farming sectors, let us not forget the unimaginable suffering that will be experienced by the Middle East and north Africa over the coming months and years. The Government have my support in urgently seeking to unlock routes to market for Ukraine’s produce.

I turn specifically to the impact on UK fertiliser costs. The numbers are stark, as we have heard, with fertiliser prices increasing fourfold or more. I am aware that the Government have taken preliminary steps to address these costs, but ammonium nitrate has gone from £200 to £800 a tonne, and I understand that the cost of gas suggests it may reach £1,000 a tonne soon.

At the same time, domestic fertiliser production has plummeted as one of only two fertiliser factories in the UK has shut. I was totally unaware of the fragility of our domestic fertiliser production, and I ask the Minister to explain what steps the Government will take to ensure that domestic production recovers and that we establish better resilience and variety of production in the years ahead. It seems highly risky to allow a single company to control all domestic fertiliser production, and it suggests a severe market failure in a strategically crucial agricultural input. Will the Government undertake to monitor this and ensure it can never happen again?

Given that fertiliser cost and supply are likely to remain tight for months, if not years, and that the cost of imported animal feeds will also remain prohibitive, what steps are the Government considering to promote domestic production of alternatives? We have already heard about legumes, such as peas and beans, which are well suited to the UK climate. They are an excellent alternative to soya, they are flowering plants that support biodiversity, they fit well into a combinable rotation and, crucially, they are not dependent on nitrogen fertiliser.

I understand that Northern Ireland has run a protein crops payment pilot in recent years. Will the Government consider expanding this across the UK in response to the fertiliser and feed cost crisis, or perhaps as part of ELMS or the sustainable farming initiative?

Talking of sustainable farming, I went back to Professor Dieter Helm’s work, Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside, which I bought in 2019 when we began to consider the Agriculture Bill. His was the seminal work that inspired the agricultural and environmental revolution that we are currently undertaking. In his chapter on food production and self-sufficiency, the professor notes the farming industry’s concerns that farming is about food production and food security first, and then about nature. Dismissing this, he noted:

“Food security is largely an empty slogan of lobbyists. It should not be taken seriously.”


How times have changed. Following the hard Brexit, the pandemic, escalating climatic catastrophe and now the war in Ukraine, the world has turned on its head. Food security, famine and the migration and misery they cause are now top of the agenda.

I have been a keen proponent of the environmental and biodiversity agenda in recent years but have always sounded a word of caution, particularly given the excessive demands being placed on our island’s limited reserves of natural capital. Many of us called for longer to complete the agricultural transition from BPS to ELMS, citing the considerable stresses that would be placed on the fragile farming community. Those requests were rebuffed, with the Government confident that seven years would be sufficient. With fertiliser and feed prices now at unprecedented and wholly unsustainable levels, are the Government giving any further thought to the timing of our agricultural transition?

Noble Lords will recall plenty of debate over the merits of rewilding and the concept of sparing productive land for nature, rather than sharing it. Given the crisis in food production, will the Minister finally confirm that government policy favours the sharing of land and will not support the wanton destruction of productive and essential farmland in pursuit of expensive dreams of an impractical prehistoric wilderness that never truly existed?

Does the Minister agree that environmental benefit will be achieved not by condemning farmers and punishing them but by ensuring their operations remain profitable and productive, while improving environmental and biodiversity outcomes through agri-environmental schemes and agritech solutions? Our academic research institutions are leading the world in these two sectors, and we need to support them better.

I am looking for some silver lining. This crisis may present an opportunity to fast forward the development of environmentally friendly alternatives to existing production methods. Of particular significance is the need to find natural, organic alternatives to the polluting and energy-hungry application of nitrogen fertilisers. For instance, what steps are the Government taking to encourage the development and application of seaweed-based fertilisers? Seaweed is rich in nitrogen, potassium phosphate and magnesium. Given our extensive coastline, surely this is an area ripe for expansion.

Likewise, our green and pleasant land delivers one thing, grass, better than almost anywhere else on earth. Given the cost inflation and the environmental degradation inherent in soya-based animal feeds, will the Minister endeavour to provide better support to the pasture-fed meat and dairy industry? Of particular concern in Devon is the ongoing uncertainty regarding the farming rules for water, which remain opaque and unclear. Their uncertain and punitive enforcement is preventing the application of much-needed organic matter to Devon’s pastures.

Finally, conscious once more of the terrifying hunger that will result from the war in Ukraine, are the Government making any efforts to ensure that UK farming produce is available to assist those hungry and in need around the world?