100 signatures reached
To: Angela Eagle, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Stop Big Chicken Choking our Rivers
- Stop expanding Big Chicken - Only expand poultry production where there's a clear public need and it supports farming that produces nature-friendly food - not more pollution.
- Protect our rivers from pollution - Set clear limits on nutrient pollution so rivers can recover instead of destroying habitats and killing wildlife.
- Make Big Chicken manage its muck - Make the poultry industry take responsibility for the waste it produces instead of leaving rivers, communities and taxpayers to pay the price.
- Support farmers, not factory farming - Help farmers to work with nature by using manure as the valuable resource it should be, building healthier soils, cleaner rivers, thriving wildlife and resilient food production.
Why is this important?
Our rivers can't take any more Big Chicken. Now is the time to act, not plan to make the problem worse.
Across the UK, rivers are already paying the price for industrial chicken farming.
Every year, over 1 BILLION chickens are reared in the UK producing 3.5 million tonnes of chicken manure. In many areas there is already more waste than the land can safely absorb. When fields become overloaded, rain washes pollution into rivers, fuelling toxic algal blooms, killing wildlife and devastating precious habitats.
At the same time, much of the feed used to raise Britain's industrial chickens relies on imported soya linked to the destruction of some of the world's most important rainforests.
Yet instead of fixing these problems, the Government is backing more industrial chicken production.
But where will all the extra chicken waste go?
There is no credible plan. There isn't enough capacity to safely process the manure produced already let alone all the extra waste, and there isn't enough suitable land to spread it without increasing the risk of river pollution.
We don't need a plan to produce more cheap chicken, we need a plan that supports farmers to produce good food without polluting our rivers.
We don't need a plan to produce more cheap chicken, we need a plan that supports farmers to produce good food without polluting our rivers.
Growing the poultry industry without a sustainable plan for managing its waste is reckless. We need a better approach.
It's time to stop #BigChicken choking our rivers.
It's time to stop #BigChicken choking our rivers.
