End Dirty Dairy

River Action launched a new Agricultural Water Pollution Strategy, setting out urgent action needed to tackle one of the biggest sources of river pollution in the UK.

One of the core asks of the strategy is to extend environmental permitting to dairy and beef farms, bringing them in line with other high-polluting sectors. This would ensure stronger oversight, clearer accountability, and better protection for our rivers.

The strategy outlines a roadmap for reform, pushing for a system that properly regulates agricultural pollution and supports a transition to more sustainable farming practices.

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld our complaint, ruling that Red Tractor’s environmental claims were indeed misleading. The watchdog found that the scheme’s advertising gave consumers an inaccurate impression of environmental standards on assured farms.

This decision marks a significant moment for transparency in food labelling. It highlights the gap between marketing claims and on-the-ground reality, and reinforces the need for assurance schemes to be honest about what their labels truly guarantee.

For River Action, it’s a clear signal that stronger scrutiny and higher standards are essential if we are to restore trust and protect our rivers from agricultural pollution.

River Action backed The Cleddau Project through our Community Fund, helping bring vital, on-the-ground water quality monitoring to life. The project saught how effective innovative approaches (like First Milk’s payment model that rewards regenerative dairy farming) can be in protecting our rivers at their source.

By linking financial incentives to better farming practices, the project is testing a new way forward for sustainable dairy—and delivering real data on what works.

Explore the project and its findings HERE.

In 2024, River Action unveiled The Dairy Report, a groundbreaking publication that shed light on widespread environmental regulation breaches within the dairy industry. By gathering fresh and compelling evidence, the report exposed the alarming scale of pollution stemming from intensive dairy farming practices, particularly their impact on rivers and waterways.

This influential document highlighted key issues, including the failure of farms to comply with manure management rules, unchecked nutrient runoff into rivers, and the absence of robust enforcement mechanisms. The findings underscored the urgent need for stronger oversight, better farming practices, and systemic reforms to prevent further environmental degradation.

River Action’s Dairy Report serves as a wake-up call to policymakers, the agricultural sector, and the public, demanding immediate action to protect the health of our rivers and ecosystems.

For more details, you can explore the full report here.

Following an Environment Agency investigation that revealed over 60% of inspected Red Tractor Assured farms, mainly dairy and beef, were failing to meet environmental regulations, River Action took action.

We filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, challenging the scheme’s marketing as misleading. Despite widespread non-compliance, Red Tractor branding continued to promote the label as meaning “farming with care.”

We raised serious questions about transparency, trust, and whether current farm assurance schemes are truly delivering for our environment.