LAND OF ROPE AND GORY: UK has more than 1,000 livestock mega-farms, investigation reveals
In the US, mega-farms or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are defined as those that hold more than 125,000 birds reared for meat, or 82,000 egg-laying hens, 2,500 pigs, 700 dairy cows or 1,000 beef cattle.
ANDREW WASLEY: There are more than 1,000 US-style mega-farms in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, including some holding as many as a million animals, according to a new investigation. In the US, mega-farms are defined as those that hold more than 125,000 birds reared for meat, or 82,000 egg-laying hens, 2,500 pigs, 700 dairy cows or 1,000 beef cattle. These are labelled by US officials as a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO).
By 2021, the number of farms in the UK that met the US definition of a CAFO, or mega-farm, was 1,099, according to research. This figure is known to be an underestimate owing to the omission of Scottish data, which was unavailable because of a cyber-attack in 2020.
The march of these US-style mega-farms in the UK was revealed in a Guardian investigation in 2017, but up-to-date data has been published this week in a book, Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future, by Philip Lymbery, chief executive of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).
In England alone, the number of mega-farms increased from 818 in 2016 to 944 in 2020. Of these, 745 house poultry and 199 are for pigs. There are four poultry farms in the UK registered for 1 million birds, with the largest holding up to 1.4 million. For pigs, the biggest three farms hold more than 20,000 pigs.
There are also at least 19 dairies that meet the criteria of a “mega-dairy”. Cows held in intensive dairies are “zero-grazed”, which means they are not allowed out into fields and are permanently housed inside sheds. The largest one in the UK appears to hold 2,000 animals.
In addition, nine mega-farms hold 1,000 or more beef cattle. US-style beef feedlots, where cattle are fattened up before slaughter, were first identified as existing in the UK in a Guardian investigation in 2018…
Animal welfare activists say animals in mega-farms are denied the ability to express natural behaviours. Keeping animals in “crowded, largely barren conditions” and using fast-growing chicken breeds and farrowing crates for pigs “calls into question our claims to be a nation of animal lovers”, said Philip Lymbery, chief executive of Compassion in World Farming…
Intensive farming is driving climate change, water and air pollution, biodiversity loss and negatively affecting local communities, including introducing potential health risks associated with ammonia pollution. Intensive livestock farming has also been blamed for increasing disease risk. SOURCE…
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