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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to UK agriculture of the reduction in cadmium within phosphate fertiliser set out in the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council COM(2016)157/F1.

Defra officials have involved UK farmers, fertiliser manufacturers, and sedimentary phosphate rock exporters on the proposal to set limits on the cadmium content of EC fertilisers. The process of removing cadmium from phosphate rock on an industrial scale is still in development and therefore the precise impact on phosphate costs is not yet known.