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On Your Farm

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Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Getting to the heart of country life with a look at individual farming endeavours

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On Your Farm: 26/08/2012

26/08/2012

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, 26/08/2012

Sarah Swadling visits a farm in Dorset with 1,000 milking sheep.

Sarah Swadling visits a dairy farm where things are not black and white, but woolly. Orchid Meadow in Dorset has 1,000 milking sheep.

Orchid Meadow has one of the biggest milking sheep flocks in the UK, near Shaftesbury in Dorset. 

Sarah Swadling meets John Ryrie, the shepherd who runs the farm, and Crispin Tweddell, who owns it. Crispin's day job is running a private equity firm which has backed businesses like the Pitcher and Piano bar chain and the clothing company Boden. 

Sarah finds out what led him to start farming, and why he chose sheep milking rather than a more mainstream enterprise. John has also made a career switch,swapping Scotland and a job with the pharmaceutical company behind Dolly the Sheep for about a thousand organic Friesland ewes.

This programme is presented and produced by Sarah Swadling.

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26/08/2012

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