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Farming Today: 12/05/2011

12/05/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 12/05/2011

Charlotte Smith hears claims farmland needs legal protection to safeguard food supplies.

Charlotte Smith hears claims farmland needs legal protection from development to safeguard UK food supplies.

Charlotte Smith hears claims that farmland needs legal protection from development to safeguard UK food supplies. 14% of the UK's farmland has been developed over the past 40 years, and Conservative MP Laura Sandys says as sea level rises, and demand for food increases, grade 1 land should not be built on.

130 million gallons of cider is now produced annually, and more than two million new cider apple trees have been planted since 1995. Farming Today visits one cider factory in Herefordshire, where local farmers are trying to meet the increasing demand.

And those people putting a bee box in gardens to help halt the decline in the bumblebee population are wasting their time, according to new research by the University of Stirling. It found that over 90% of these bumblebee homes are just lying empty. Dr John Holland from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust tells Charlotte Smith how planting more wild flowers is a better was to help the 6 endangered species of bumblebee.

Presenter: Charlotte Smith. Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

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