Earlier this year, Wicked Leeks brought you the story of poo, pollution and profits: how the UK’s intensive poultry industry has become a runaway train that was killing our rivers. Since then, the slope has grown even more slippery.
“We are at ‘peak poultry’,” says Ruth Westcott, a campaigner with Sustain, who has been tracking this issue for years. “We think it’s the large agribusinesses that are to blame. They need strict regulation, in the same way government is proposing to regulate sewage companies.”
Six months on and Westcott and her allies at Friends of the Earth and Compassion in World Farming have published a sequel to this ‘storm’. Their new ‘muck map’ reveals the areas of the UK that are most at risk of nutrient pollution from manure produced by factory farms – these are the ones with more than 40,000 birds or 2,000 pigs and as such are classed as ‘intensive’ by the government, requiring an environmental permit to operate.
Using government data and farmland maps, the campaigners determined the probability of muck being spread across the UK (this was calculated using average distances that manure is exported to farmers, combined with the manure produced by each factory farm). You can use the map to zoom into your local area, but the overall picture is mucky, to say the least.
Mucky business
Up to 33,450 tonnes of manure is produced every day by chickens and pigs in these factory farms, according to the new research. The Severn, Great Ouse, Ouse (Yorkshire), Trent, Norfolk Rivers Group and the Wye top the list of river catchments being polluted.
Factory-farmed chickens and pigs produce 3,649 tonnes of waste in the river Severn, 2,540 tonnes in the Ouse (Yorkshire), 2,974 tonnes in the Great Ouse, 2,262 tonnes in the Norfolk River Group and 2,456 tonnes in the Trent, the campaign groups say. “We just can’t keep producing more and more of this waste,” says Westcott.
Indeed, speak to river quality experts like Josh Jones, senior technical analyst at The Rivers Trust and it’s obvious our waterways are in dire straits. The Rivers Trust State of our Rivers report found that no single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health, and just 15 per cent of English, 31 per cent of Northern Irish and 50 per cent of Irish river stretches reach good ecological health standards. They also found toxic chemicals that remain in ecosystems for decades pollute every stretch of English rivers. The situation is thought to be better in Wales and Scotland, though it’s hard to compare due to differing approaches to monitoring and the lack of available data.
He isn’t the only one to decry the lack of detailed information we have on the state of these precious resources and ecosystems. “Are things as bad as people say? We don’t know because we don’t have the data to confidently know what is going on at the groundwater level in our river catchments,” says Alastair Chisholm, director of policy at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM), which represents and supports those dedicated to improving water and environmental management for the benefit of the public. “We are only just starting to put the jigsaw together,” he adds.
One thing we do know is that our rivers are sick. In some cases, it’s clearly visible. In others, the pollution is invisible – loaded with chemicals of concern such as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are synthetic chemical compounds; more on these at Wicked Leeks, next month). There are also many reasons why rivers are failing their health tests but “far and away the biggest culprit” is agriculture, says Jones.
Almost two thirds (62%) of river stretches failed because of activities attributed to agriculture & rural land management (pollution from fertiliser or livestock). Water management was linked to 54 per cent, while 26 per cent of failures were attributed to the urban and transport sector. “The land just isn’t managed with water in mind,” Jones explains. The state of our rivers was already bad but has been “getting worse,” he adds.
No lost Lovell
Water companies have taken much of the heat for this in recent months. So too has the Environment Agency (EA), which regulates industries and enforces (or tries to enforce) environmental rules. But heads are now turning towards farmers too. At this year’s NFU conference in March, I remember the sharp intake of breath as Alan Lovell, the son of a farmer and the EA chairman, stood up in front of thousands of farmers who had decried his agency’s handling of winter floods and said: “This is a two way street. I’ll take my medicine on flooding, and other aspects. But please, will you take yours?”
Lovell presented a slide showing that water companies were responsible for 36 per cent of England’s river pollution – which was “appalling” – but the figure for the farming sector was even higher (40%). With the net tightening on water companies the warning to farmers was clear. “I think that just increases the urgency on us working with you to make absolutely sure that the agriculture number also comes down dramatically,” he said.
Many, like campaigner Ruth Westcott, welcome scrutiny of the agriculture sector as an environmental polluter. However, she insists – and this is a message she also made crystal clear in a BBC interview last week – that farmers and farming generally should not be the scapegoat here. “We want to put the spotlight on the systems that are most responsible for the pollution crisis,” she tells me.
The problem is the intensive livestock systems that supply the major meat processors with high volumes of cheap meat, and which continue to expand in the UK and overseas at an alarming rate. These big companies are profiting from pollution, say campaigners, and the argument that we need to intensify systems in order to reduce costs for consumers and cut carbon emissions is folly. “We have to stop rationalising intensive livestock farming systems just because they have a lower greenhouse gas emissions profile than more extensive ones,” Westcott told BBC Radio 4. There are a “complex set of environmental impacts” that need to be considered, including the ones flooding and filling our rivers.
Earlier this year, the work of Sustain and Friends of the Earth showed that the 10 largest agribusinesses are responsible for producing almost double the excrement of the UK’s 10 largest cities combined. Arla, Avara Foods, Banham, Bernard Matthews, Cranswick, Hook2Sisters, Karro, Moy Park, Noble Foods and Pilgrim’s Pride have over 144 million animals in production at any one time – generating 55,262 tonnes of poo a day.
Cranswick, for example, reportedly has more than 9.6 million chickens, 1.5 million pigs and 62,000 sows ‘in production’, which together produce 9,653 tonnes of muck every day. The company is hoping to expand this after applying to construct two sites housing another 14,000 pigs and 870,000 chickens in Norfolk.
A third assessment is underway to determine the pollution from the site, which has been opposed by the local Labour MP, according to BBC reports this week. Lawyers for the conservation group, WWF, have also claimed elements of the scheme are ‘unlawful’ because they don’t divulge the full environmental impacts and damage from the expansion. Cranswick is arguing that it’s a choice between expanding the sites over here or importing more chicken from overseas.
Mucking around
As ever it’s far from that simple. Planning rules need to change, says Westcott, but that isn’t the end of the story either. Changes to government policies and permitting rules are needed, while companies need to take responsibility for their waste. “We can’t just keeping moving this muck around,” she adds.
When I ask Jones at The Rivers Trust what the solutions are he admits to asking himself that question almost every day. It’s about everything from better regulation to the price we pay for food, he explains. The problems with our food go deeper than polluted rivers and cooped-up pigs and poultry.
I much appreciate all the useful and interesting information. In a nation of so called “animal lovers” can we know how many poor animals from intensive farms are sacrified yearly to feed “Meat-based dog’s meals”? It is counter intuitive to say human need to eat little meat whilst the number of dogs is huge and (nor their fault of course) they eat the poor chicken, couw and so on. I will be 61 next months and I have been reading about the subject of corporate agriculture versus smaller farms and cooperatives, as well as the horrors of intensive farmining since I was 25.
I hope you can forgive my utter disappointment in humans.
Thank you for this article. n conversation I will remember to mention the greater contribution of intensive farming with respect to pollution. I totally agree with the other comment about animal welfare and dog food. We can and should reduce our meat consumption and only purchase free range/organic, but most will not, or cannot do this. I wish people realised the true cost of so called ‘cheap’ meat. The animal suffering must be horrendous.
I am aware there is now reliable information about dogs being vegetarian, they are, like us, omnivores. We could certainly at least reduce meat given to dogs and by saving money on this, only buy free range meat for our furry friends. My dog loves all Riverford veg (I do not give him any from Allium family), and has less, but better quality meat. Our vet says he is in very good health for his age.
Shame more people either don’t know or turn away from such information. I guess I’m like most, who for many years was oblivious to what is going on in Animal Agriculture. But having educated myself regarding the current situation it seemed quite easy to turn away from animal products. I don’t want to be part of this awful system which is destroying our land just to produce something we can live without. My actions alone, I realise, will make little difference, but I need to do something both for the sake of those who will inherit the planet and this beautiful earth which God created.
These are truly shocking statistics that put the focus where it should be, on intensive animal farming and finding a solution to the disposal of all this muck.
I think the comment by licia is interesting…we often discuss the reduction of animal protein in the human diet but almost never that of pets.
The pet food system is one we’ll also be exploring in an upcoming piece, early next year.