Investors Come Together To Urge Meat Producers To Stop Water Pollution

Members of the nonprofit sustainability advocate Ceres and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility are working together to urge some the country’s largest meat producers to develop policies to reduce water pollution in their feeding, slaughtering, and processing operations.

The 45 investors who are members of the advocacy groups altogether manage $1.2 trillion in assets and, according to Reuters, sent letters to Cargill Inc, JBS, Perdue Farms, and Smithfield Foods.

The investors wrote asking the companies to analyze the pollution impacts of their operations and “supply chains to develop comprehensive plans for protecting waterways, safely storing and managing animal waste and minimizing fertilizer runoff from feed production.”

"We believe that robust management of water quality challenges is a critical aspect of risk management in the meat industry, and one of increasing importance in the context of climate change and growing weather extremes," the investors wrote.

The campaign comes a month after Hurricane Matthew flooded manure lagoons, leaving behind millions of drowned animal carcasses such as hog, chicken, and turkey. It was this tragic incident that started raising risks of water contamination in the southeast.

According to a press release from Ceres, last year the nonprofit released a report ranking major food companies on water risk management. In the report, there were several meat companies, including Tyson Foods and JBS, identified among the worst performers.

A recent report from Environment America placed Tyson as the biggest water polluter in the meat sector, “releasing 104 million pounds of toxic pollutants into waterways from 2010 to 2014 from its slaughtering and processing plants, and buying livestock that generates approximately 55 million tons of manure per year.”

"With climate change, business-as-usual management of the more than 300 million tons of manure produced annually by the U.S. livestock industry is no longer feasible," Brooke Barton, senior program director of Ceres' Water and Food Programs, told Reuters.

In a statement, Cargill said that “it is working with customers, competitors, suppliers and conservation groups to improve water stewardship across supply chains in North America and beyond.”

"Water is critical to supporting the agricultural economy, and we are committed to advancing sustainable solutions," Cargill said.

For more visit Water Online’s Water & Wastewater Treatment For The Food & Beverage Industry Solutions Center.