Factory Farming - Muck Map

Mapping the spread of muck from factory farms

Alongside our friends at Sustain, the alliance for better food & farming, and Friends of the Earth, we have released our new “Muck Map” showing where the most animal manure is produced by factory farms in the UK, and the areas most at risk of nutrient pollution from this manure.

This “muck”, high in nitrogen and phosphates is spread on fields, and surplus can wash into rivers. Soil in every region of England is now too high in nitrogen, affecting our wildlife, and even the Government's new house building target.

Are you ready to see the size of the stain in your area? Use this interactive map to scan in, or check “your area”. The darker areas of the map indicate where muck is spread at the highest quantities.

Take Action

Email the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to ask her to strengthen the law and ensure that local authorities have the power to reject planning applications for new factory farms.

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Any questions about the muck map?

Muck is the excretion from farmed animals. This map shows muck from poultry and pigs, which is removed from farms in liquid form as slurry or in solid form as manure, that has been mixed with straw. It is then spread on the land of the same farm or on other nearby farms as fertiliser.

While muck/manure adds nutrients and organic matter to the soil, soils in every English region are in a nutrient surplus and cannot absorb the nutrients from the additional volume of manure being spread. Nutrients from manure run off oversaturated soil into local rivers, either directly or slowly through soil. The nutrients from manure can cause algal growth in rivers, leading to algal blooms that starve plants of light. When algal plants die and decompose, they create areas with low oxygen that acquatic life can't survive in. The result? A dead zone.

Livestock farms that have more than 40,000 birds or 2,000 pigs are classed as intensive by the UK environmental agencies and require an environmental permit. These farms are recorded by the relevant national environment agency because farming is a devolved issue, for example in England this is the Environment Agency.

Farms that require a permit, are intensive and prevent animals from being on pasture are referred to as factory farms throughout the Muck Maps. For example, a small number of large free range poultry units are still classified as “intensive” and require a permit because of their size.

For Compassion, it’s both the size of the farm, and the system used that’s important. Some large farms may have higher welfare indoors, for instance, good barn systems for laying hens and Better Chicken Commitment chicken and/or outdoor based with high welfare, and we would consider these to be intensive farms but with higher welfare – so not factory farms. However, farms that keep a large number of animals in barren environments such as cages and crates, crowding them into hanger-like sheds or confining them in feedlots, are considered factory farms.

There are many smaller factory farms that fall under the permit threshold that were not assessed in this research. These smaller farms can only be found through council planning portals, and so assessing the likely manure spread from smaller factory farms was beyond the scope of this project.