Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of rising fertiliser prices on (a) wheat and (b) other food crop production in (a) 2022 and (b) future years.

The situation and impacts on farmers in particular, and industry more widely, of increasing fuel prices, are being monitored closely. Defra is in regular contact with key industry figures including the National Farmers Union, the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board and key sector representatives.

The Government has announced steps to assist farmers with the availability of fertilisers to address uncertainty amongst growers and keep costs down for farmers, such as delaying changes to the use of urea fertiliser by at least a year to help farmer manage costs in light of pressure on the supply of ammonium nitrate fertilisers. Alongside revised and improved statutory guidance on the use of slurry and other manures during autumn and winter, we have introduced new slurry storage grants to help farmers meet the Farming Rules for Water and reducing dependence on artificial fertilisers by storing organic nutrients until needed or for onward processing.

In addition, further details of the Sustainable Farming Incentive have also been published. Given current fertiliser prices, the priority must be to pioneer new technologies to manufacture more organic-based fertiliser products, and rediscover. The Government will pay farmers to help them with the costs of sowing nitrogen fixing plants and green manures in their crops or in advance of their crops to substitute some of their fertiliser requirements for the coming season and reduce their dependence on manufactured fertilisers linked to the price of gas.

Last week I chaired an industry fertiliser roundtable to continue to work on these issues, identify solutions and better understand the impact of current pressures on farmers. In addition, Defra is extending the membership of its longstanding Market Monitoring Group, which involves industry expertise to understand trends in markets.

We understand from industry intelligence that the vast majority of fertiliser needs for this planting season have been met. The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain that has coped well in responding to unprecedented challenges. We speak regularly with food industry figures, who remain confident in the food supply chain.