As phosphate fertilizer prices remain at very high levels after spiking this yr, scientists are calling for urgent measures to administer phosphorus, an important element essential for food production, but which can be behind environmental pollution in our rivers and lakes.

In launching the UK’s first comprehensive national transformation strategy into phosphorus, researchers say they’re providing a roadmap for the way the nation can higher manage this essential resource.

The strategy outlines a pressing need for brand new solutions and scaling-up of existing phosphorus innovations to stop future damage to aquatic biodiversity and habitat, reduce reliance on dangerous import markets and to unlock recent opportunities for agriculture.

Phosphorus is a lynchpin of our food system – plants cannot grow without it and has no substitute.

Crop and livestock production within the UK is nearly entirely depending on imported phosphorus in feeds and fertilisers – the UK imports around 174,000 tonnes of phosphorus annually. Much of those imports derive from phosphate rock from countries including Russia, Morocco and China. The worth of phosphate fertiliser quadroupled between mid 2020 and mid 2022 because of supply disruptions and market concentration in China. The continued war in Ukraine is serving to spotlight the food security risks related to reliance on imports of critical farm inputs like phosphorus.

Despite volatile prices and provide disruptions, phosphorus use within the UK continues to be highly inefficient, with lower than half of imported phosphorus used productively to grow food. Mismanagement of phosphorus over a long time has led to it being a serious contributor to environmental problems. Wastewater discharges, together with excess phosphorus accumulating in agricultural soils and leaching into our rivers, lakes and other waterways, are contributing to issues reminiscent of algal blooms.

The ‘UK Phosphorus Transformation Strategy’ – a serious output from the RePhoKUs project, led by Lancaster University and involving the University of Technology Sydney, University of Leeds, AFBI, UK CEH and funded under the UK’s Global Food Security research programme – sets out the challenges and key steps needed for the UK to adopt resilient, efficient and sustainable management of phosphorus.

Professor Paul Withers, of Lancaster University and lead investigator of the RePhoKUs project, said: “At present the UK doesn’t have a coherent plan for managing phosphorus across the food system, either nationally, regionally or inside catchments. This needs to vary urgently.

“Transforming the best way phosphorus is utilized in the UK food system is crucial. Getting it right provides huge advantages to food and water security, tourism opportunities, and to take care of a clean healthy environment to spice up biodiversity and the natural world for generations to come back – nevertheless it requires all sectors to come back on board.”

The strategy’s recommendations, co-developed with national stakeholders through extensive consultation with farmers, regulators, policy-makers, food producers, wastewater firms, and environmental managers, highlight plenty of priorities to enable the UK to transition towards using phosphorus more sustainably:

• Develop and deploy at scale recent technologies and innovations that may get well phosphorus from animal manure, wastewater and food waste, and redistribute as viable, cost-effective and renewable fertilizers.
• Provide incentives that encourage investment in technologies and lower barriers to create recent markets for a renewable phosphorus fertilizer sector.
• Improve, align and make coherent policies and governance that recognize and manage phosphorus as a scare resource, in addition to a pollutant.
• Provide tailored knowledge, research and advice for farmers on tapping soil legacy phosphorus, and using recycled phosphorus.
• Higher engage stakeholders across the entire phosphorus value chain to set strategic direction and support implementation via bespoke and diverse local phosphorus solutions.
• The creation of nutrient stakeholder platform and UK nutrient data sharing dashboards to assist inform phosphorus management

Other than the phosphorus sources in wastewater treatment plants servicing towns and cities, the report highlights that phosphorus is unevenly concentrated across the UK. Where livestock farming is most intensive, predominantly within the west of England and Northern Ireland, then surpluses of phosphorus (largely in manure) are higher. The surplus phosphorus applied in England’s North West region alone is such as nearly £30 million of fertilizer.

In areas where arable crops are grown, which tends to be predominantly within the east of the country, there’s a deficit and the necessity to use phosphorus-based fertilizers because crops are taking over greater than is applied.

Nevertheless, the logistics of moving bulky manure from one a part of the country to a different are impractical. Finding recent modern ways to extract and relocate phosphorus from manure might be key in addressing these regional imbalances.

There may be currently billions of kilos of phosphorus locked in UK top soil from a long time of applications of fertilizer and manure – accessing and managing this legacy phosphorus ‘bank’ is central to improving efficiency and reducing imports, the team of scientists behind the brand new strategy argue.

Considered one of the report’s lead authors, Associate Professor Brent Jacobs said: “The excellent news is there are lots of pockets of innovation and initiatives already under way in several sectors within the UK. These may be learned from, scaled-up and integrated to assist overcome among the challenges related to phosphorus use.

“Theoretically there’s enough phosphorus circulating within the food system and in our soils. Considered one of the pathways to achieving sustainable phosphorus use will involve developing and deploying recent technologies that may extract legacy phosphorus from soils and manures and develop recent renewable fertiliser markets.”

The authors highlight the necessity for all of the several actors and sectors involved in food production, across catchment areas and government departments, that are currently operating in a fragmented manner, to work more closely and to adopt modern solutions to transition towards using phosphorus more sustainably.

Professor Julia Martin-Ortega of the University of Leeds and co-author of the report said: “Because the UK food system is undergoing fundamental policy change, our report provides a timely opportunity to integrate urgently needed actions across all sectors of the food chain into regional and national policy and governance, tapping into huge potential wins for the environment and the economy.”