A new report published today by The Wildlife Trusts has unearthed significant inaccuracies in poultry data used to inform the Government’s policies on land, manure and pollution management in England.
The report, Counting Chickens - An analysis of UK poultry numbers, sheds new light on the scale of the poultry sector in England, particularly in the chicken farming hotspots of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Shropshire and Herefordshire. It follows numerous Freedom of Information requests (FOIs) and analysis of other official data sets which reveal major discrepancies in the number of chickens reportedly housed in the areas. (1)
The report shows that a highly significant number of chickens – at least 25 million birds – are currently missing from data used by Government departments in the four counties alone. If the scale of inaccuracy was mirrored at a UK level, it could mean over 67 million birds are currently unaccounted for.
The Wildlife Trusts believe that misleading figures are being used to inform Government policies on land, the environment and river pollution, and may also affect decisions made about permits and planning permissions for additional poultry operations. This could lead to huge impacts on water pollution, nature and land use being ignored.
For example, the report demonstrates that in failing to recognise the true scale of chicken farming in England an estimated 185,189 cubic metres (equivalent to 74 additional Olympic-sized swimming pools) of poultry manure currently goes unreported every year. This highly concentrated waste accumulates in the surrounding environment, including waterways, with pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorous having negative impacts on both water quality and the wildlife that lives in rivers.
Vicki Hird, strategic lead on agriculture at The Wildlife Trusts says:
“The evidence is clear: Government decisions on poultry permits, and subsequent land use and pollution impacts, are based on misleading data. Our new research shows that in England alone, these inaccuracies could mean an undercounting of poultry by at least a third, with huge impacts on our natural world, as well as on the health of the rivers and waterways we all enjoy for bathing and drinking water.”
Left unchecked, industrial levels of poultry waste can have significant impacts on waterways such as the River Wye and Severn, where nitrates and phosphorus levels from manure have caused severe ecological decline and damaging impacts to wildlife populations including endangered Atlantic salmon. The increasing levels of land required, both in the UK and globally, to feed poultry also has significant environmental impacts, especially due to the large quantities of pesticides and fertilisers needed for feed production.
These issues were highlighted in The Wildlife Trusts’ earlier report, Quantifying the Environmental Risks from Pig & Poultry Production in the UK, which showed how poultry production is highly concentrated, with more than half of England’s chickens in just 10 council areas/
The combined findings of both reports have led The Wildlife Trusts to call for:
- An urgent data and policy review: Action must be taken to ensure data on the UK poultry flock in all four nations is accurate. A review of all poultry policies, regulations and measures – including any growth plans and planning rules and decisions at local level – must then work to ensure risk and harms are avoided, using correct figures to inform decisions.
- Reform existing permitting regimes: Risk assessments and environmental permitting of intensive poultry units in the UK must be reformed. Units must be accurately assessed and permitted according to both their size and the wider environmental impacts of feed and excreta, especially in light of water pollution risks.
- Food chain regulation: Ensure supply chains are regulated and incentivised to support farmers to transition to a less polluting and more integrated poultry system.
Vicki Hird continues:
“With discussions underway about both water reforms and the profitability of the poultry sector, it’s essential that the Government ensures accurate data is being used to inform policy changes and action. Alongside this, permitting rules must take the wider impact of poultry units on the environment into account, while farmers should also be supported to transition to less polluting practices. Only then will we have a poultry system which works for farmers, wildlife and for people long into the future.”