Big 4 grocer Tesco’s leading chicken supplier Avara Foods is being called on by campaigners to pay reparations to help clean up the River Wye.
The call comes as the river running from mid-Wales to Severn estuary has been affected by rising algal blooms, which is partly caused by poultry farms spreading more manure than the land can absorb, scientists claim.
According to The Guardian, Avara Foods is responsible for over 16 million of the 20 million chickens reared in the Wye catchment, which has soared in chicken numbers over the past 20 years.
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Despite, the company pledging its supply chain would not contribute to excess phosphate in the River Wye by 2025, campaigners have said that is simply not enough.
The company’s new plan promises to increase “more robust nutrient, soil and manure management standards” that would export more manure out of the river catchment.
It also ensures its poultry waste will only be spread on land in the area when there is evidence it is needed.
“It is time that Avara committed to paying to restore the Wye as a matter of urgency,” Richard Tyler of campaign group Save the Wye said.
“The principle of ‘the polluter pays’ should apply here just as it does in America.”
Avara claimed that it is its chicken suppliers rather than the company itself that issues poultry manure to the land, and that “the excess phosphate in the Wye arises from a significant number of producers and users in the catchment – of whom we are but one”.
