Subscribe to podcast
by BBC Radio 4All rural life is here: daily news of food, farming, the countryside and the environment with analysis and context from the BBC’s experts in the field. Presented by Anna Hill, Miriam O’Reilly, Charlotte Smith and Mark Holdstock, Farming Today goes out every weekday on Radio 4 at 0545 (14 minutes) and at 0635 on Saturdays (22 minutes).
Recent podcasts
Farming 29th Sep 07: sheep farmer
29/09/2007
Presented by Tom Heap. With bluetongue now officially declared an outbreak, Farming Today This Week visits the home of one farmer struggling to cope with this latest blow. The arrival of the disease in the UK follows the discovery of foot and mouth in Surrey, widespread flooding and rising feed prices. Charles Sercombe, who breeds pedigree sheep in Leicestershire, says it makes this year the worst he's ever known in his twenty five years of farming. So what hope is there for the industry and how will it impact on food on the shelves? Find out on Farming Today This Week just after half past six here on BBC Radio 4.
Farming: 28 Sept 07: A glimmer of good news
28/09/2007
As Defra signals that livestock markets can resume next week in the low risk disease areas it's a signal of hope for farmers. But has enough been done in the first place to identify where the diseases have taken hold?
Farming 27 Sep 07: Isaac knows his onions
27/09/2007
There's another suspected case of foot and mouth disease on a farm near Maidenhead in Berkshire, that's within the existing surveillance zone... and a fourth animal, on a third farm has tested positive for Bluetongue, though Defra still isn't saying that Britain has an official outbreak of this disease. But amid the gloom there's light in this year of Food and Farming. Join Charlotte Smith to hear how Isaac, a vegetable sceptic, has learned to love onions.
Farming 26 Sep 07: Bluetongue here to stay?
26/09/2007
With a third case of blue tongue confirmed and livestock movement restrictions on farms in Suffolk and Norfolk, Farming Today morning talks to those in Belgium already well acquainted with the disease. Over three thousand farms are already affected there and a Belgian Ministry vet tells us that we in the UK must learn to live with a disease which is impossible to contain.
Farming 25 Sept 07: bluetongue alert
25/09/2007
Much of England and Wales is to be freed from foot and mouth livestock restrictions - but a huge swathe of Eastern England is being placed under surveillance because of bluetongue. Counties including Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire are affected.
