Agri-businesses targeted in river clean-up campaign

A new environmental campaigning group is targeting some of the biggest agricultural suppliers in the United Kingdom as part of its efforts to cut down pollution in the country's rivers.

Figures released recently by the Environment Agency have revealed the extent of the damage being done to the country's waterways, with agricultural pollution becoming an increasingly big problem.

Last year, just 14 percent of rivers examined were declared to be in a healthy condition, and none at all were given good chemical status, highlighting the impact chemical pollution is having on them.

The newly-launched River Action group has begun its first campaign by writing to the head of a major egg-producing company, Noble Foods, whose production facilities near the UK's fourth-longest river, the Wye, on the border between England and Wales, are reportedly having a serious impact on the river.

"We believe that the time has come for the large agri-businesses that procure product from our farmers and supply our retailers to assume their fair share of the responsibility for cleaning up agricultural pollution," said River Action's founder, businessman Charles Watson.

"These are often large profitable businesses, who without exception proclaim publicly their commitment to responsible and sustainable business practices. River Action intends to hold them to account."

The group draws support from all sectors, including well-known environmental author George Monbiot, financier Ben Goldsmith, whose brother is former Conservative Party member of Parliament Zac Goldsmith, and former musician Feargal Sharkey, who tweeted, "if the regulators won't deal with it somebody else will", at the campaign's launch.

On its website, the group says "our purpose is to apply pressure on industrial and agricultural producers to take greater responsibility for remedying the adverse environmental impact their supply chains are having on the health of our rivers".

Noble Foods uses the brand name the Happy Egg Co to supply many of the country's leading high street chains, and in a letter to its CEO, Duncan Everett, River Action has asked for details of methods it uses to prevent "highly damaging nutrient runoffs" into the river from its free-range farms.

"As consumers and investors become increasingly environmentally aware, food companies need to step up and take responsibility for the practices of those in their supply chain," said former Conservative Party environment minister Richard Benyon, who is on the group's advisory board.

"We take our responsibility to protect the environment extremely seriously," a Noble Foods spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Guardian. "We have been working in close collaboration with the Wye-Agri Food Partnership and the Usk and Wye Rivers Trust soil erosion group to develop long-term solutions to this complex situation that affects the entire agriculture industry.

"It is our aim to deliver a plan that can be successfully implemented across the farming sector."