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

To ask His Majesty's Government what recent assessment they have made of the use of Controlled Release Fertilisers (CRFs) to optimise crop yield.

Controlled release fertilisers are increasingly being adopted by farmers as they have the potential to increase efficiency, and reduce the environmental footprint of UK agricultural systems, thereby helping to achieve UK Government policy objectives.

In order to review evidence and make recommendations for options to best enable safe and effective use of Enhanced Efficiency Fertilisers, Defra commissioned research, including a rapid evidence review which considered the impacts of control release fertilisers on crop productivity and quality.

The results from the rapid evidence review will be published later this year.