A new interactive map has revealed the scale of ammonia pollution from industrial pig and poultry units across the UK, with the worst concentrations clustered in Lincolnshire, Herefordshire and Norfolk – regions with the highest density of intensive farms.
The map, created by Compassion in World Farming and Sustain, highlights clear pollution hotspots where emissions from large-scale livestock operations are driving dangerous levels of ammonia. The gas, which is released from animal manure, reacts with other pollutants to form PM2.5. (view the map here)
Agriculture accounts for 89% of UK ammonia emissions. As industrial animal production has intensified, so too have the environmental and health burdens. PM2.5 penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream, causing cardiovascular and respiratory disease and premature death. Emerging evidence also links long-term exposure to strokes, lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, and dementia.
Nationally, agriculture contributes up to 39% of urban particulate pollution. Recent modelling across Leicester, Birmingham and London found that 79% of areas exceeded WHO guidelines for PM2.5, contributing to an estimated 29,000–99,000 premature adult deaths each year.
Dr Amir Khan, TV doctor and Compassion Patron, said: ‘As a GP, I see firsthand the toll that air pollution takes on people’s health – and ammonia from intensive farming is a major, yet often overlooked, part of that problem. The fine particulate matter formed from ammonia exposure drives heart disease, stroke, asthma and chronic lung conditions, and it is our most vulnerable patients who pay the price.
‘When factory farming releases huge volumes of ammonia into the air, the health impacts don’t stay on the farm – they reach our surgeries, our hospitals and our communities. Reducing these emissions is not just an environmental issue; it is an urgent public health priority.’
Residents living near intensive units are already feeling the effects. In Whaplode Drove, Lincolnshire, Michele Franks described how emissions from a nearby poultry farm trigger chest tightness, eye irritation and breathing difficulties during shed cleanouts that can last up to five days. A new proposal for 12 additional sheds housing more than half a million birds threatens to place her home between two industrial units.
‘When the chicken sheds are cleaned out, the smell and the polluted air hits me straight away – my chest tightens, my eyes sting, and I have to shut every window in my house just to cope,’ said Franks, who is asthmatic. ‘They say escape to the country for cleaner air but no one should have to live sandwiched between industrial units that make them gasp for breath.’
The environmental impacts are equally severe. Excess nitrogen from ammonia deposition acidifies soils, fuels algal blooms and degrades forests, grasslands, wetlands and freshwater habitats.
Compassion in World Farming is calling for an end to the expansion of factory farming and for government to support British farmers to produce healthier food, including an end to unfair trading practices that prevent farmers from making a decent living.
‘The spread of industrial factory farming must stop,’ said Anthony Field, Head of Compassion in World Farming UK. ‘Factory farming sits at the heart of the UK’s ammonia crisis. By cramming large numbers of animals into confined spaces, these intensive systems release far more ammonia than the environment or our bodies can cope with. The result is a cascade of harm – to the animals, to the people breathing the polluted air, and to the ecosystems absorbing the excess nitrogen.’
Map: Compassion in World Farming and Sustain
Photo: ChaosHusky
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