80% of the UK egg sector’s emissions come from soy-based feed imported from South America, reveals an industry report
While the ‘beef’ industry is often thought of as one of the worst greenhouse gas emitters and contributors to rainforest destruction and the ensuing climate crisis, a new report reminds us that other agricultural sectors have a lot to answer for including, not least of all, the UK’s free-range egg producers.
Thanks to documentaries like Cowspiracy, awareness of the disproportionate impact of cattle farming on the environment has never been greater. Respected global institutions, world leaders and high ranking politicians and even popular culinary platforms are all telling people to stop eating red meat for health and the environment. But what about products from other agricultural sectors?
A new report from the British Free Range Egg Producers’ Association (BFREPA), unveiled at an online session of the recent Pig & Poultry Forums, has revealed that as much as 87 per cent of carbon emissions from UK free-range egg farms arises from their use of soy-based animal feed brought into the UK from Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.
"Importing product from those countries does attract a much, much higher carbon footprint because it can be linked to land use change,” Heather Webb, senior environmental consultant at Promar International, told viewers of the forum. "It can be anything between nine and 15 kilograms of emissions for every kilogram of feed that is imported from those countries.”
The BFREPA, which represents the UK’s free-range egg producers, commissioned the study to look into the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Webb told viewers that with cows, sheep and ruminants methane was the main issue, while nitrous oxide from arable farming was linked to the use of fertilisers, but with egg production it was important to understand that carbon dioxide was the cause of the greatest concern.
Feed for laying hens usually consists of between 16 and 19 per cent protein, with much of it sourced from soya from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, according to Martin Humphrey of Humphrey Feeds. Alternatives to soy include sunflowers, insect protein, algae and worms, though all are either more expensive or the technology is not quite there yet, he said.
As discussed in our ‘vegan fact check’ article - What percentage of soy is fed to ‘livestock’ in the UK? - 60 per cent of all the soy imported to the UK is destined for the poultry sector, including free-range egg farms, intensive poultry farms with more than 40,000 birds, and the 570 ‘mega farms’ housing more than 125,000 broilers or 82,000 laying hens each.
While critics of the vegan lifestyle like to accuse us of contributing to deforestation, only six per cent of soy produced globally is consumed by humans as whole beans in foods like tofu, soy milk, and edamame. Another 13 per cent of global production goes to humans as soy oil, while 77 per cent of all soy produced is for animals.
Webb told forum viewers that since the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, much attention had been placed on the climate crisis and the need for countries to transition to net zero economies. “Everyone is now required to decarbonise and transition to a low carbon future,” she said. Indeed the National Farmers Union (NFU) has its Achieving Net Zero: Farming’s 2040 Goal strategy for making UK farming ‘carbon neutral’. However, according to Surge contributing writer Dr Alex Lockwood, the strategy is “misleading, flawed and unimplementable” with much of it reliant on gene editing and other untested technologies.
This echoes what Humphrey told the forum about alternatives to soy for chicken feed, and that hopes for reducing emissions from animal agriculture rest on solutions that were neither financially nor technologically accessible. What is accessible now and has been proven to be a more sustainable and better use of land is plant-based agriculture that both ends the use of animals and ends farming’s reliance on gene editing and other technologies that see animals as nothing more than profit-making machines.
Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.
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