Ammonia pollution hotspots found in areas of UK with most pig and poultry factory farms | Pollution

Ammonia pollution hotspots have been identified in areas with the highest number of intensive pig and poultry farms in Britain, research has revealed.

A new map reveals for the first time that the worst concentrations of ammonia emissions are clustered in Lincolnshire, Herefordshire and Norfolk. These regions all have a high density of intensive poultry and pig farms that generate dangerous levels of ammonia, according to researchers from Compassion in World Farming (CiWF) and Sustain.

The research comes as the government attempts to rewrite planning rules to make it easier to build intensive livestock farms, despite concerns about water pollution, air quality and local opposition, the Guardian revealed earlier this month.

Ammonia emissions are dangerous to human health and the environment. In the UK, agriculture is responsible for 89% of national emissions of nitrogen-based gases used to produce fertilizer and released through livestock manure. Intensive factory farming increases the environmental and health burdens associated with ammonia, CiWF said in a report released Thursday along with the map.

Once in the air, ammonia reacts with other pollutants to form particulate matter – PM2.5, considered one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution. The Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) estimated that exposure to human-caused PM2.5 was responsible for 28,861 to 29,000 premature deaths in the UK in 2010.

Modeling shows that reducing agricultural emissions could significantly reduce mortality rates.

Dr Amir Khan, GP and Patron of CiWF, said: “As a GP, I see first-hand the detrimental consequences of air pollution on people’s health – and ammonia from intensive agriculture is a major, but often overlooked, part of this problem.

“Fine particles formed by ammonia exposure cause heart disease, stroke, asthma and chronic lung disease, and our most vulnerable patients pay the price. »

Released into the environment, excess nitrogen from ammonia deposits acidifies soils and pollutes rivers. In Shropshire, campaigners recently blocked permission for a mega poultry farm by successfully arguing that the council had failed to consider all the environmental impacts of an industrial unit containing 230,000 chickens at one time when granting planning permission.

The increase in the number of large intensive poultry units, called IPUs, in the Wye and Severn river valleys is a major cause of river pollution, as chicken droppings contain more phosphates – which deprive fish and river plants of oxygen – than any other animal manure.

The map released Thursday is an estimate of ammonia produced by factory farms.

Calculations were derived from allowable stock numbers and average ammonia production factors for different categories of livestock, such as broilers, indoor eggs and pigs.

Michele Franks, who lives near a mega-poultry farm in Lincolnshire, told researchers that emissions regularly force her indoors, causing chest tightness, eye irritation and difficulty breathing during shed cleanings that can last up to five days at a time.

“When the chicken coops are cleaned, the smell and polluted air hit me immediately: my chest tightens, my eyes sting and I have to close all the windows in my house just to deal with it,” she said. “I have asthma and for days I can’t even go into my own garden. They say run away to the countryside for cleaner air, but no one should have to live sandwiched between industrial units that stop them from breathing.”

CiWF and Sustain call for an end to the expansion of industrial agriculture.

Anthony Field, head of Compassion in World Farming UK, said: “Industrial farming is at the heart of the UK’s ammonia crisis.

“By cramming large numbers of animals into confined spaces and relying heavily on fertilizers, these intensive systems release far more ammonia than the environment or our bodies can handle. The result is a cascade of damage – to the animals living in these conditions, to the people breathing the polluted air, and to the ecosystems absorbing the excess nitrogen.”