The Government’s announcement that the seasonal worker visa scheme is being extended for five years has been welcomed by farming organisations. It comes as part of DEFRA's response to an independent review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain which was published last summer. Also in that response is a commitment to "turbo-charge" investment in automation with an extra 50 million pounds of funding for new technology for automating pack houses and to improve robotic pickers.
Jon Old’s family own around 16 hectares of watercress beds across Hampshire and Dorset. Their watercress ends up on the shelves of major supermarkets but since 2010, they’ve also been growing something else: wasabi. Wasabi is particularly difficult to grow - Jon calls it the the “Goldilocks Crop” because everything has to be just right!
And our whistle-stop tour of farming in the West of Europe with Cornish farmer and Farming Today journalist Stuart Oates concludes on the Coast of Portugal, where one of the crops he discovers is rice.
Presented by Caz Graham Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons
25/05/24 Farming Today This Week: The Chelsea Flower Show; what farmers want from a new government
24/05/2024: Farmers on the election, Mushroom farming, Growing flowers
23/05/24 General election and rural vote; Daffodils; New planning rules and land values.
22/05/24 - Farm labour, flower growers and live export ban
21/05/24 - Planning rules change, growing roses and no Spring flush
20/05/24 Illegal waste; Environmental benchmarking; Flower industry
18/05/24 - Farming Today This Week: Farm to Form Summit and the Balmoral Show
17/05/24 The Balmoral Show
16/05/24 - Water company landscape plan, solar farm planning, horticulture strategy and rural tourism
15/05/24 - The Farm to Fork Summit at 10 Downing Street
14/05/24 - Farm to Fork Summit, Welsh holiday homes and a conservation dog
11/05/24 Farming Today This Week: Sandeels, funding for robotic pickers, crisis of confidence for farmers, European roadtrip.
13/05/2024 - Food exports, rural tourism and new Welsh creamery
09/05/24 - Regen ag, Iberico pork, OEP water report and tractor factory strike
08/05/24 - Coast path, carbon sequestration and selling fruit direct
07/05/24 UK EU row over sandeels, farmers' collapse in confidence, Bordeaux wine growers in trouble
06/05/24 Behind the scenes on the Wildland Estate where Scotland's largest landowner is making big changes.
04/05/24 - Farming Today This Week: Border checks, cider orchards and illegal waste dumping
03/05/24 Latest badger cull figures, Jeremy Clarkson, sniffing onion disease
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