Ammonia pollution damaging more than 60% of UK land – report
Experts are calling for urgent government action to stem the rise of ammonia emissions, nearly 90% of which come from factory farms. At least 3,000 deaths a year could be prevented by halving agricultural emissions.
ANDREW WASLEY: ‘Ammonia and nitrogen pollution, mostly from farms, is harming more than 60% of the UK’s land area and hitting the most sensitive habitats for plants and wildlife hardest, a government report has found, despite there being no clear plans to monitor or reduce its impact.
More than 85% of England’s total land area receives ammonia concentrations above the critical level set to protect lichens, mosses, liverworts and similar plants – keystone species that are vital to ecosystems – while Northern Ireland is even worse, at 88%. Just over half the land in Wales is affected, and less than a fifth of Scotland…
Large-scale factory farms with huge numbers of confined animals mean vast quantities of manure and a surge in air pollution… The pollution, which flows into waterways and is deposited into the air, can have a devastating effect on plants and animal life… [The government] needs to get serious about charting a course away from deeply damaging industrial livestock farming…
The number of intensive pig and poultry farms has increased by more than a quarter in recent years, previous investigations by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have shown. There are now about 800 US-style “mega farms” across the country, most of them poultry and pig farms, joined by nearly a dozen cattle “feedlots” for beef production in the east of England…
Experts and activists are calling for urgent government action to stem the rise of ammonia emissions, nearly 90% of which come from farms. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and combines with other pollutants in the air to form fine particulates that pose a grave danger to human health. At least 3,000 deaths a year could be prevented by halving agricultural emissions of ammonia, according to a joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’. SOURCE…
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