Gobble Gobble - Turkey Time!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

As tomorrow is the big day, I thought I’d do a little topical post about farming in (or should I say for?) the festive period.

Now, many of us will be eating Turkey for Christmas lunch tomorrow (if you aren’t, or if you are a vegetarian going for the nut roast vibe this year, don’t feel like you can't read on!). Personally, I know very little about poultry farming, and so I thought I’d have a little dig to see what I could find out, and perhaps even see if anything might relate to environmental change! A lot has been said about bird welfare, but I want to focus on a more ecological and environmental perspective of the turkey production process.

Turkey is our most popular centrepiece for Christmas lunch (Source: longestacres.blogpost.co.uk)

Although very much considered as exclusive to one day of the year, more than 22 million turkeys are produced in the UK every single year, with the majority reared intensively. Intensive agriculture…environmental alarm bells ringing!

The ability of one Turkey farm to produce such vast amounts of meat (Bernard Matthews, I’m looking at you!) means that the production of large volumes of animal waste in such small areas is a real environmental challenge . Animal waste runoff contributes significantly to high levels of nitrogen and phosphorous in natural habitats such as water systems, with particularenvironmental damage borne by local regions. Manure has been seen stacked high in fields, which is then washed into river systems when it rains…there is no mechanism or practice in place for the prevention of this transportation. Consequences of eutrophication, among others, are serious and have very severe repercussions for the aquatic environment specifically.

Turkey production is one of the most intensive forms of agriculture (Source: grist.org)

Moreover, due to the large numbers of birds produced in one location, the fossil fuels burned (and hence the pollution released into the atmosphere, contributing to the global warming phenomenon) to transport our Christmas lunches to our local supermarkets worsen the industries environmental impact. Of course, this factor is not exclusive to our festive birds, but it is a significant element of how intensive poultry systems are damaging to the environment.

Of course, turkey farming isn’t all bad, and you should definitely not feel guilty when you tuck in tomorrow, but the intensive side of turkey production which is so dominant due to seasonalised demand has significant detrimental impacts on the environment. I think this provides another example of how intensive agricultural systems, although currently necessary to meet our growing demands, have to be recognised as having detrimental environmental effects, and for the specific practices generating such impacts to be identified and modified.

I hope you all get what you wished for from Santa Claus, and no one has to chomp through dry turkey meat tomorrow!