BH Estates’ new report, Farm2Export: Ammonia, demonstrates how feeding a single bio-based fertiliser plant (with an output of 30,000 tonnes) could conservatively deliver a 12% reduction towards Northern Ireland’s national agricultural ammonia reduction target. The development of additional or larger digestate fed bio-based fertiliser plants would further increase this emissions reduction potential.

The report also highlights how current planning and assessment processes may constrain the deployment of the technologies needed to achieve these benefits.

Biomethane and Nutrient Supply Chains

On 20 April 2026, a motion titled “Clean Biomethane for Northern Ireland’s Energy, Food and Environmental Security” was presented in the Northern Ireland Assembly, receiving support from all five of the main parties. The motion highlighted the significant benefits of developing a sustainable biomethane industry in Northern Ireland (NI), spanning agriculture, wastewater management, environmental protection, and energy security.

In relation to nutrients, the development of manure treatment processes that separate, stabilise and convert slurry through anaerobic digestion into biomethane and transportable bio-based fertilisers offers a practical pathway to rebalancing regional nutrient cycles. This approach can help reduce nutrient loading pressures while improving farm viability.

The Farm2Export project, launched in 2023 under the Sustainable Utilisation of Livestock Slurry programme (SULS) and part-funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), is advancing such an integrated nutrient recovery system for NI. To date, the project has removed over 10,000 tonnes of separated slurry solids from more than 80 farms, generating in excess of 6 GWh of green gas energy in the process. In essence, it integrates agriculture and energy systems by combining on-farm slurry management with processing at anaerobic digestion plants to recover and redistribute nutrients efficiently.

A key question has been: what impact does this have on ammonia emissions? In response, the Farm2Export: Ammonia report was created and launched in collaboration with the UK Centre for Hydrology and Ecology. The report assesses the impact of this supply chain on the national ammonia inventory. The findings are highly encouraging, indicating a conservative reduction equivalent to 12% of Northern Ireland’s national agricultural ammonia reduction target, with potential reductions of up to 30% depending on the modelled scenario.

Implications of the Planning Landscape

While the Farm2Export supply chain offers significant opportunities for reducing ammonia (and phosphorus) pollution, the assessment of its net ammonia impact remains constrained by current planning procedures. Adherence to the Interim and Proposed Operational Protocol for evaluating ammonia impacts on designated sites can limit the wider adoption of manure processing technologies, particularly where cumulative or distributed reductions across the supply chain are difficult to quantify. This is due to the structure and spatial scale of the assessment process, which focuses on the impact on specific protected sites, often not crediting potential reductions elsewhere.

In addition, where existing emissions are not recognised as the appropriate baseline, proposed developments and their associated emissions are often deemed non-compliant. This reflects both the limitations of the current assessment framework and the already elevated background ammonia concentrations in NI.

In contrast, Natural England has introduced an updated approach that more explicitly accounts for baseline emissions and better recognises the potential for overall emission reductions. While the Office for Environmental Protection oversees both jurisdictions, differences remain between the approaches taken by the NI Environmental Agency and Natural England within the planning system.

Other Environmental Policy/Goals

A Farm2Export-style approach to slurry management is particularly important in the context of new emerging nutrient regulation (Nutrients Action Programme 2026-2029), as well as actions set out in The Lough Neagh Report and Action Plan and the draft Climate Action Plan.

The Lough Neagh Report and Action Plan highlight the need for improved manure management and supports the scaling of slurry processing technologies to reduce excess land spreading of nutrients. However constraints within current planning and assessment procedures risk limiting the effective deployment of these solutions, and in turn, the delivery of the plan’s objectives.

In summary, unless assessment frameworks evolve to fully recognise the emissions reduction potential of nutrient recovery technologies, the ambitions set out across nutrient management (including carbon reduction) and the Lough Neagh improvement strategy are unlikely to be fully realised.

Recommendations

When policy is incoherent or misaligned, both the local environment and the economy are negatively affected. Midway through the Farm2Export project, an important component of the Lough Neagh Action Plan, this misalignment is increasingly evident, despite strong scientific evidence supporting the development of the supply chain from both a nitrogen (including ammonia) and phosphorus perspective.

This disconnect between environmental objectives and planning processes is creating a ‘delivery vacuum’ (i.e., a missing enabling approach), that leaves farmers under pressure to comply with regulations but without sufficient practical pathways to do so.

As we approach the final year of the current political mandate, it is essential that nitrogen and phosphorus governance is better aligned and coordinated. A more integrated approach would support the efficient use of nutrients, reduce environmental risks, and provide greater certainty for both farmers and investors. In doing so, it would deliver benefits across the economy and environment, strengthen energy security, and reinforce existing government policy direction.

Dr Áine Anderson – Senior manager at BH Estates and technical lead on the Farm2Export Project. Áine is a lead author on the Farm2Export: Ammonia report and the 2022 QUB/CASE biomethane report, and contributed to the Phosphorus Stock and Flows in the Northern Ireland Food system report within the REPHOKUS Project. Her PhD focused on modelling and mapping farm nutrient balances for NI and was awarded the Climate Change Thought Leadership Award (PhD category) (2022).

Jack Blakiston Houston MRICS FAAV – Managing Director at BH Estates, and project manager of the Farm2Export Project. Jack is Chartered Rural Surveyor (MRICS) and Fellow of the Association of Agricultural Valuers. 

The research including in this report is part funded by DAERA. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of DAERA.