Consumers ‘blind’ to river damage from chicken farming

Consumers remain unaware of the damage industrial farming is having on the water environment, with the majority blaming sewage as the main cause of poor quality river water.

A report from Soil Association reveals that almost half of the public (45%) believe sewage is the main reason rivers do not meet good ecological health, followed by litter and plastic pollution (40%).

This has risen since 2022, when a CCW survey showed 35% of people saw untreated sewage as the main cause of river pollution.

Just 15% of the population understand the impact that industrialised farming is having on the water environment, despite phosphate pollution – which comes from chicken manure among other sources – being the most common reason that rivers fail to meet good ecological status.

The report into damage caused to rivers from intensive chicken farming from phosphate pollution comes as a legal challenge has been brought against government and regulators for failing to protect the River Wye.

Environmental group River Action, with Leigh Day legal, claim the Environment Agency and Department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) acted unlawfully by not enforcing regulations. This, the group said saw huge levels of diffuse agricultural pollution reach waterways, which has caused ecological collapse of the river.

The phosphorous is added to the soil of mass-farmed soya, which is imported to feed the chickens. Chickens digest and convert it to phosphate that is excreted in manure, which in turn is added to soils as a fertiliser but if inappropriately applied it leaches into rivers and waterways.

Phosphate pollution is the most common reason that rivers fail to meet good ecological status. Mitigating phosphorous from wastewater treatment is the largest investment need in business plan proposals by the water sector for 2025-30 to ensure compliance with new regulatory standards.

The Soil Association said the poultry industry is a leading cause of “dead zones” in the River Wye, where excrement from 20 million chickens has contributed to phosphate pollution. Phosphate pollution causes algal blooms, which suffocate plants and wildlife that depend on them.

The report looked at the rising numbers of permits for factory farmed chickens in England and Wales and showed 10 river catchments are heavily impacted by these large units.

These are in Norfolk, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Herefordshire and Powys as well as the Wye. The organisation has called on government to ban new intensive units from being built.

The industrial chicken meat sector has been expanding at a rate of one million birds per month since 2014 to more than one billion annually.

The survey showed 80% of people in the UK were not aware of the scale of industrial chicken farming, or that 90% of birds reared for meat live in large-scale units.

Three-quarters of the public said they would eat less chicken to help reduce the impacts on UK rivers and environmental damage overseas where soya is grown.

Rob Percival, head of food policy at Soil Association, called industrial chicken production “the most ethically bankrupt and environmentally destructive business in the UK”.

He called for urgent government action to reform the system and offer farmers a viable alternative .

Thousands of tonnes of waste from the birds is produced each week, with most of it spread on land near the farming units. A study by Lancaster University showed excess phosphorus in agricultural soils in the Wye catchment could provide 20 years of fertiliser without further input.

One of the largest chicken processers Avara has said it will transport waste away from the Wye catchment. However Soil Association argues that moving such large volumes would put other water catchments at risk.

Cathy Cliff, author of the report, said: “We do not have time for sticking plasters and false solutions that kick the can down the road. For the sake of farmers who need resilient, sustainable businesses, and all the wildlife that depend on rivers like otters, kingfishers and dragonflies, we must act now. We must halt and start reversing the damage that has been caused or we risk our rivers becoming dead zones.”

Under the Environment Act 2021, government introduced legally binding targets to reduce nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment pollution from agriculture entering the water environment by 40% by 2038. Interim targets of 10% by January 2028, and 15% in catchments with protected sites impacted by nutrient pollution.

Soil Association said it was “questionable whether these targets are ambitious enough to prevent irreversible biodiversity declines”.

The Environment Agency and Natural Resources England monitor water quality at each river basin, but the report said the approach was inadequate to accurately capture impacts on water quality and river health enough to establish robust evidence of cause and effect.