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On March 30, Defra and the Government made two significant announcements that affect our industry, unusually both in a positive way.

Firstly, the long-awaited response to the Governments 2021 urea consultation, which for the time being agrees with the views of the NFU and our industry partners who have argued for self-regulation and our continued ability to responsibly use uninhibited solid and liquid urea products.

Importantly, Defras response will include its support for a new Red Tractor standard to help reduce ammonia emissions from urea-based fertilisers while allowing the use of untreated products between January 15 and the end of March each year.

All who work in our industry should see this as a positive step forward. Government was insistent on change to meet its emissions targets, so much so that a complete ban on all uninhibited urea-based products was a stark reality facing UK farmers. The whole industry should be commended for coming together and working to change the course of Defras preferred option which would have seen us lose uninhibited solid urea.

Given the state of fertiliser markets we argued for the policy implementation to be postponed for a year so the standards should not be published until April 2023 and that compliance checks should not start until the autumn of that year.

Government will continue to monitor emissions and the effectiveness of the policy, and we will continue to stress the importance of urea fertiliser. Importantly, Government will introduce more regulatory burdens if ammonia reduction targets are not achieved, and as early as 2026.

So, through the involvement of Red Tractor, we have successfully avoided the proposed outright ban of urea fertilisers, and their continued proper use as part of a balanced and integrated nutrient management plan should be retained for the foreseeable future if we all play our part in meeting the new requirements.

Hot on the heels of the urea announcement, Defra published its new guidance for Farming Rules for Water. After months of concerted work and lobbying by the NFU and other industry stakeholders, the new guidance clarifies that Government does not intend to ban summer and autumn manure applications.

We now know that the guidance will give growers who have nutrient management plans in place a process to follow a risk-based approach in planning manure applications for crop or soil needs and that they wont cause significant risk of pollution in doing so.

A wide range of simple tools are already available to allow growers to calculate, plan and tailor applications to crop requirements, so this task should not be an onerous one. However, in most cases a grower will be expected to have established a crop or cover crop where manures have been applied.

Importantly, the new guidance will distinguish between high- Readily Available Nitrogen (RAN) and low-RAN manures. Products such as slurries or liquid digestates of 30% or above will be limited to a maximum rate during each application of 30cu.m per hectare and high-RAN poultry manures to 8t/ha. Low-RAN manures (less than 30% available N) such as FYM or solid digestates will remain under existing spreading limits in accordance with product analysis. Either industry standard figures or specific test figures can be used by growers and should be used to establish nutrient content of the manures being applied.

Some changes to current practices will be required under the new guidelines so I would urge growers to visit the Defra website and keep an eye out for industry guidance to establish what they need to do for this summer and autumn. This is our chance to show how important organic manures are in improving soil health and delivering crop nutrients, but to do so, we must all use them responsibly. It is now vital our industry adheres to the new guidance if we are to retain practical use of valuable manures in the future.