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Farming Today: Farming Today This Week

13/03/2010

Farming Today This Week

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Farming Today This Week

Charlotte Smith hears from some of the most intensive farms in the UK.

With plans for a dairy farm with 8,000 cows, Charlotte Smith asks whether intensive farming is having an impact on animal welfare.

Charlotte Smith visits one of the largest pig farms in the UK. Needwood House farm in Staffordshire is one of seven farms across the country run by Midland Pig Producers. All 4,000 pigs are intensively farmed in indoor units. Charlotte looks at the scale of intensive farming across farming as a whole in the UK. Research from Reading University claims 90 per cent of food eaten in the UK now comes from intensive farming, and with UN targets of a 70 per cent increase in global food production over the next 40 years, UK farmers will be expected to produce more food from the same amount of land. Charlotte Smith hears from some of the most intensive farms in the UK and looks at the impact this is having on animal welfare.

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