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Farming Today: 13/09/2011

13/09/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 13/09/2011

Fears of honey shortages after EU rules on the sales containing pollen from GM crops.

With Anna Hill. There are warnings of a honey shortage in the UK after the EU set new guidelines on sales of honey containing pollen from GM crops.

There are warnings there could be a shortage of honey on supermarket shelves following a EU ruling. The decision by the European Court of Justice means that no honey containing pollen from GM crops - can be marketed in the EU without prior authorisation and labelling. Currently the UK imports around 90% of all jarred honey. A large large percentage of that comes from Argentina and China where GM crops are grown. The British Honey Importers and Packers Association says the impact on its members could be commercially quite severe. 

From the start of 2012, it will be illegal to keep chickens in battery cages. Anna Hill visits an egg producer in Norfolk who is in the process of replacing the traditional cages. With the old and new side by side, the farmer compares them with the new enhanced welfare cages, which have more space for the hens to turn around, stretch and move and come with perches and scratching areas. The farmer says it has cost him £300,000 to replace all the infrastructure on his farm. 

Also in the programme, £4 million is to be spent to try to reduce the incidence of Britain's most common form of food poisoning. The most frequent source of the Campylobacter bug is from raw and undercooked poultry meat. Its estimated that 65% of chicken carcasses carry the bacteria. The research includes trials to wash poultry meat in lactic acid baths - and another which will look at whether feeding polyunsaturates to chickens can reduce the bacteria in the gut.

Presenter: Anna Hill; Produced in Birmingham by Angela Frain.

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