Part
1
In
Herefordshire the river Wye curls through market towns, forests of
oak and yellow fields tall with rapeseed. It is an area of
outstanding natural beauty - walkers come to the area to traverse
Offa’s Dyke, go fishing or catch a glimpse of herons, bats or
polecats. Which makes the sight just down the road from the church in
one small village somewhat unexpected.
A short walk
along a public footpath a few miles from the river brings you to a
field where large white polyethene tunnels stretch dozens of metres
down a hill. They are met at the bottom by five mammoth sheds - each
as long as a football pitch. Tall metal silos rise up from between
the imposing units.
It looks
like something out of a sci-fi film - but it is in fact a typical
modern UK farm. Inside the warehouse walls, nearly 800,000 chickens
are being bred for slaughter at any one time.
This
facility is one of nearly 1,700 intensive poultry and pig farms
licensed by the Environment Agency. A Bureau investigation shows that
the number of such farms in the UK has increased by a quarter in the
last six years.
Many of
these units like the one in Herefordshire are giant US-style
“megafarms”. Our investigation has discovered there now nearly
800 of these throughout the UK. The biggest house more than a million
chickens, 20,000 pigs or 2,000 dairy cows, in sprawling factory units
where most animals are confined indoors.
The growth
in intensive farms is concentrated in certain parts of the country
where major food companies operate and many are in the process of
expanding. In Herefordshire, intensively-farmed animals outnumber the
human population by 88 to one.
The two
biggest farms we have recorded have the capacity to house 1.7 million
and 1.4 million chickens apiece.
Behind the
data lies a fundamental debate about what we want to eat as a nation,
and what price we are prepared to pay for that food.
The big
farms say they are led by consumers - people want to buy cheap meat,
and intensive farming is the only way to efficiently satisfy that
demand. But critics say factory farms blight local communities,
subject animals to prolonged distress and push out small producers -
and that we do not need the vast quantities of meat we consume.
Norman Lamb,
the MP for Norfolk, called on the government to review whether the
regulations around intensive units were robust.
“The
government need to gain a greater understanding of the impact of
these very large units,” he said. “They should look at
whether lessons can be learned from the US. We need new and robust
domestic regulations to meet the emerging landscape and to take the
place of European Union legislation post-Brexit.”
The majority
of Britain’s poultry meat is produced by a handful of large
companies including Faccenda, Moy Park, Cargill, 2 Sisters and Banham
Poultry - all of which are privately-owned. Tesco, Sainsbury’s,
Morrisons, Asda, McDonalds, and Nando’s are among the supermarkets
and fast food chains who source meat from companies operating
megafarms, our investigation has found.
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