At 6 AM this morning, climate activists from Extinction Rebellion blocked the entrance to Avara’s Allensmore feed mill with a 3 metre tall bamboo structure and banners. They say they are protesting the company’s role in a supply chain causing environmental disasters in the Wye Valley and the Brazilian Amazon.
“Avara-Cargill is buying soya [2] that’s grown on deforested Amazon land,” says David Gillam, a Company Director from Peterchurch. “This soya is fed to chickens up & down the Wye, and their poo washes into the river which pollutes and kills it. They’re using the Wye as a sewer for the mountain of manure they dump on us each year. There are 20 million chickens in the Wye catchment, and Avara-Cargill’s toxic supply chain is destroying both our local river and the forests of Brazil. The forests are vital if we’re to reduce the impacts of runaway climate breakdown.”
The Extinction Rebellion protesters have three demands: First, they want Avara to clean up its international supply chain by ending all sourcing of Brazilian soya for its poultry feed. Second, they say that Avara must completely stop chicken manure from polluting the River Wye and clean up the mess they have already made of it. And third, they say that Avara must not build new intensive poultry units of any size, or expand existing units in the Wye catchment area.
Lou Wombacher-Haden, 19, is a freelance consultant from Madley, and he spoke while handcuffed to the bamboo structure. “We have to do our part. I’m prepared to protest peacefully and be arrested to draw attention to Cargill’s use of dirty soy. We can’t just tell other countries to act – we have to clean up our own house.”
As part of the action against Cargill-Avara, other activists are marching through Hereford at 9am this morning [3], starting at the Avara plant where the Wye Valley chickens are killed and processed. They are joined by other community groups who oppose the toxic chicken feed supply chain.
The activists point out that deforestation in Brazil and the destruction of the Wye are contributing to the climate crisis. Last week saw the first ever UK Red Extreme heat warning from the Met Office, and scientists say that all heat waves are now becoming more extreme due to climate change.[4]
British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian activist Bruno Pereira were recently murdered [5] as they reported on the destruction of the Amazon. Other journalists and activists in Brazil have being targeted and murdered [6] for their roles in exposing environmental destruction.
Sitting atop the bamboo structure at Avara’s Allensmore entrance, chef Addie May Swarbrick Schwarz, 31, from Malvern said “Dirty Soy is being processed here and fed to chickens up and down the Wye. We can see what the chicken manure is doing to the Wye river, but we can’t see the harm to the rainforest, or the people who were murdered trying to protect it. We’re here on behalf of them.”
