Marks & Spencer has announced that the 27 English and Welsh farms in its dedicated milk pool will use an innovative green fertiliser from spring 2024.
M&S will enter an exclusive partnership with Bartholomews Agrifood and Fertiberia using the first fertilisers in the world produced with green hydrogen instead of natural gas.
The retailer has set bold targets to reduce its carbon footprint and become a net zero business across its entire value chain by 2040.
The fertiliser, called Fertiberia Tech Nergetic Range, contains a mix of nitric and ammoniacal nitrogen, as well as plant-available sulphur for plant growth and to drive nitrogen-use efficiency.
In addition, it contains an exclusive biodegradable regulating polymer coating that reduces leaching losses.
Overall, this delivers nitrogen-use efficiency 22% higher than conventional fertiliser, according to manufacturer Fertiberia, offering the opportunity to use less fertiliser and potentially reduce the number of applications, as well as the amount of leaching.
This is supported by preliminary data from trials on M&S dairy farms, which show that the product applied at a rate of 150kg/ha leads to 31% higher yields over two silage cuts.
As well as better agronomic performance, the real benefit comes from the unique way it is manufactured using green hydrogen, resulting in a CO2e reduction of approximately 3 tonnes per tonne of ammonia used compared to conventional fertiliser.
This sees production of ammonia move from utilising natural gas to produce hydrogen, to using only water and renewable energy, significantly reducing the environmental impact.
Steve McLean, head of agriculture at M&S, said: "72% of the M&S Food’s emissions come from agriculture and around half of these are from livestock, primarily ruminants. As such, it is critical that we work with our farmers to deliver meaningful change.
"We believe that the use of these fertilisers will enable our farmers to maintain productivity whilst playing an important role in helping to decarbonise milk production, and we are excited to have entered this partnership with Bartholomews and our dairy pool members."
He added: “This new technology is applicable to all grass-based systems and systems where fertiliser is a key component in delivering efficient food production.
"The M&S milk pool has a long track record of adopting innovative solutions to improve sustainability, and we will be fully verifying the impact of this development on carbon through independent analysis by SRUC as we continue to work to deliver low impact farming solutions across our food business.”
The fertiliser range is manufactured by Fertiberia and is exclusively distributed in the UK by Bartholomews.
