ACTIVISTS have taken to the streets of Hereford dressed up as judges, rats and chickens as they highlight the plight of the river Wye.

The issues facing the Wye are well documented, with phosphates, mainly coming from chicken farms, polluting the river and harming its health.

Environmental campaign groups took to the streets of Hereford on Easter Saturday as they tried to use street theatre to bring a new angle to their concerns over pollutant damage to the Wye.

From 10am in High Town, "Lady Wye" put Avara Foods, and its parent company Cargill, "in the dock". There were also demonstrations outside Tesco in Bewell Street and the Avara Foods factory.

She will bring to "the court of public opinion" her evidence that Cargill knew many years ago of the damage that would be done to her and her ecosystem by the proliferation of intensive poultry units near her riverbanks.

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Spearheaded by Marches Climate Action (MCA), a silent troupe of "Red Rebels" mourned and gave witness to the "impending loss of the treasured ecosystem".

A samba-led procession also made its way past Tesco, which the group accuses of supporting the river damage as it buys and sells Avara poultry. The procession then ended at Avara's factory at Red Barn Drive.

The latest protest comes after recent revelations in a US court where Cargill, the multinational parent company of Avara, was found guilty of damaging the River Illinois in the same way as the Wye and ordered to pay reparations.

Hereford Times: Red Rebels in High Street, Hereford, as they highlighted river Wye pollution Red Rebels in High Street, Hereford, as they highlighted river Wye pollution (Image: Georgina Spencer/Hereford Times Camera Club)

MCA said it is now also calling on the company to step up and pay full reparations here also.

Tesco previously said it was committed to playing its part in protecting rivers, adding Tesco’s environmental policy commits it to ensure that wastewater or pollutants from its supply chain “will not have any adverse impact” on watercourses, and that it will “not knowingly risk causing irreparable ecosystem damage”.

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A spokesperson for the supermarket added: “In partnership with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), we have funded some of the work of the Wye & Usk Foundation to tackle water pollution in the area.

“They work directly with a number of our suppliers on implementing nature-based solutions, including tree planting, as well as supporting farmers to test soils and implement on-farm best practice that all help reduce pollution in the River Wye.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Avara, which employs 2,000 people locally, said: “We’ve accepted that we are part of the problem, and have developed a plan to resolve this.

“We are the only contributor with a public, data-based and time-framed roadmap that will mitigate our impact in the catchment, and have shared these plans with key parties.”

Formed in 2017 as a partnership between US-based food giant Cargill and poultry firm Faccenda Foods, Avara manages a supply chain of about 120 poultry farms in the Wye catchment which give rise to around 160,000 tonnes of manure a year.

But the company now says that in two years’ time its supply chain will have ceased contributing to excess phosphate in the river.

It says it has already reduced the phosphate in its chicken feed by 27 per cent and plans to reduce this further, as well as bringing in “more robust nutrient, soil and manure management standards”.