Mega farms in Britain must be phased out if the government is serious about meeting its new greenhouse gas emissions target, experts have warned.
While much focus has been placed on ending our reliance on fossil fuels to meet the 81% reduction target by 2035, announced by the Prime Minister earlier this week, this won’t be possible unless drastic action is taken to end our reliance on factory farming. Currently, the industry accounts for an alarming one-third of direct greenhouse gas emissions—more than all the world’s planes, trains, and cars combined.
Earlier this year, This Publication revealed there are 1,176 mega farms in the UK. Critics have called the 20% rise from 2016 a cruel trend. Compassion in World Farming reported that 85% of UK farm animals, over a billion, live in overcrowded barns.
This creates a vicious cycle, increasing the use of pesticides and fertilizers on animal feed crops, which then supply industrial animal agriculture—a major user of fossil fuel energy.
Tricia Croasdell, CEO of World Animal Protection, who is attending the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan, told This Publication: “What should already be clear to the Prime Minister is that you cannot achieve this target unless you address industrial animal agriculture—and not just in the UK. It must seek to phase out factory farming and shift toward an equitable, humane, and sustainable food system that places animals, people, and their communities at its heart.”
A new report from World Animal Protection, issued at COP29, warns that even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted across all other industrial sectors, current trends in global agriculture would prevent the achievement of the 1.5°C target. By the end of the century, it would also threaten the 2°C target.
The report highlights how factory farming not only drives greenhouse gas emissions through fossil fuel use, but also contributes to widespread deforestation, the destruction of grasslands, and the loss of other vital habitats to grow crops to feed industrially farmed animals. These actions immediately release massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Additionally, the report points out that manure and emissions from animals generate significant amounts of methane, another greenhouse gas that causes rapid warming of the planet.
Tricia Croasdell added: “The simple truth is we cannot tackle climate change or protect human rights without addressing industrial factory farming—a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The consequences of ongoing inaction are dire. Without substantial reductions in food system emissions, it will be impossible to prevent global heating from spiraling further out of control.”
The warning comes as plans to build Britain’s biggest mega farm in Norfolk, which will house up to 870,000 chickens and 14,000 pigs, have attracted nearly 15,000 complaints. Cranswick, the food giant behind the plans, says the two sites will be set 400 yards apart and operate separately as a ‘bio-precaution.’ Locals fear the giant facility will ruin the area.
Objections to the mega farm include one stating: “This cannot be allowed. It will destroy our countryside with pollution in the rivers, earth, and air. The stench will be appalling. Disease will be rife… Welfare of animals is not good either.”
Campaigning groups Feedback and Sustain claim the two applications for the separate mega farm sites are “unlawful” because they fail to provide details on expected greenhouse gas emissions, preventing a proper assessment on “climate change grounds.” The organizations—who have threatened legal action if the applications are approved despite their “significant deficiencies”—claim the mega farm and its associated suppliers would generate the equivalent of 120,000 tonnes of CO2 every year, nearly a third of the amount already produced by all road traffic in the borough annually.
Anthony Field, Head of Compassion in World Farming UK, said: “The livestock sector globally produces more direct greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s planes, trains, and cars combined. Manure and agricultural synthetic fertilizers are the two main human-created sources of nitrous oxide, the third most important greenhouse gas, which is often overlooked.
Undeniably, there is growing awareness of the need to reform our food systems in order to have a chance of meeting emissions reduction targets. However, in the UK, 85% of farmed livestock are housed in industrial ‘factory farms.’ It is vital that we halt the expansion of industrial livestock production and shift toward nature-friendly farming practices for the sake of animals, people, and the planet.”
“We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a whole-of-society approach to achieve this. People in high-income countries, like the UK, need to reduce their consumption of meat and dairy and opt for animal-sourced foods that come from higher welfare and nature-friendly farming systems.”
