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Farming Today: Milk Protests, Mental Health Helpline, Rural Business, German Crop Spraying

10/10/2014

Milk Protests, Mental Health Helpline, Rural Business, German Crop Spraying

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Milk Protests, Mental Health Helpline, Rural Business, German Crop Spraying

The mental health of farmers and the dairy farmers protesting over falling milk prices.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe. Dairy farmers protest outside a Somerset milk processing plant, and the rural charity that reaches out to farmers struggling with mental health problems.

This week has seen the return of dairy protests. On Monday night farmers were in Shropshire demonstrating at Muller Wiseman in Market Drayton. We hear from those who were picketing Morrisons at Bridgwater in Somerset on Wednesday night. It's starting to look like a re-run of the situation in 2012, when protests by farmers led to the introduction of a voluntary dairy code.

All this week we've been reporting on health services in rural areas. Today is World Mental Health Day - we hear about YANA which provides support for anyone in agriculture struggling with mental health problems like stress and depression. YANA stands for You Are Not Alone. 

Are rural businesses being penalised by planning, potholes, poor transport and painfully slow broadband?
Later today in Exeter, the South West Federation of Small Businesses is holding its first rural businesses conference in its 40 year history. The Environment Secretary Liz Truss will be there; and delegates will be trying to find solutions to the problems hindering rural commerce. Richard Haddock, who's rural spokesman for the South West Federation explains what they're hoping to achieve in order to support rural businesses. 

And world record crop spraying in Germany. The machinery giant Amazone claims one of their trailer sprayers covered a staggering 2,550 acres in 24 hours - that's 106 acres an hour. They sprayed 15 fields of oilseed rape with the herbicide glyphosate.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Mark Smalley.

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