A further tightening of artificial nitrogen use is outlined in the new Climate Action Plan. It aims to cut sales of nitrogen to 330,000t by 2025 and 300,000t by 2030.

This is a further cut to fertiliser use beyond what was outlined in Ag Climatise, the Department of Agriculture’s roadmap to climate neutrality. In AgClimatise the aim was to reduce to 350,000t by 2025 and 325,000t by 2030.

In 2021/2022 sales of artificial nitrogen declined dramatically to 343,193t, exceeding the target in place. The fall was mainly price-driven.

In the new plan, there is also a target of 80-90% uptake of protected urea on grassland farms by 2025 and 90-100% by 2030. This is a very ambitious target, given that in the first three quarters of the 2021/2022 season protected urea accounted for just 16% of straight nitrogen sales.

Ag Climatise aimed to replace all urea with protected urea by the end of 2023.