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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if her Department will quantify the contribution to soil cadmium levels of (a) phosphate-based fertilisers and (b) environmental pollution.

Defra does not hold the information requested.

The rate at which cadmium levels in soil change is measured in decades, and to calculate the contribution to soil cadmium levels of (a) phosphate-based fertilisers and (b) environmental pollution would require historical data on cadmium input rates that have not been collected. In particular, the cadmium concentration of phosphate-based fertilisers is not regulated in the UK, and Defra does not collect data on it.

However, Defra does have a recent estimate of the current average rate of input of cadmium into European soils through various mechanisms. For (a) phosphate-based fertilisers this is 0.8 grams of cadmium per hectare per year; and for (b) environmental pollution this is 0.35 grams of cadmium per hectare per year. This estimate is part of the evidence base for an EU fertiliser regulation proposed in March, which limits the concentration of cadmium allowed in phosphate-based EC fertilisers.