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Farming Today: Rural Housing, Pesticide Ban, Algae Farming

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07/07/2015

Rural Housing, Pesticide Ban, Algae Farming

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Rural Housing, Pesticide Ban, Algae Farming

Should rural areas be exempt from the government's right to buy plans?

Farming news presented by Anna Hill. The government is pressing ahead with plans to give Housing Association tenants the right to buy. Should rural areas be exempt?

Plans announced by the government will give Housing Association tenants the right to buy their homes. It's a controversial policy, and some people now argue that rural areas should be treated as a special case. The Campaign to Protect Rural England is suggesting that rural communities with populations of less than 10,000 should be exempt from the policy, because there are already so few affordable homes in rural areas. It believes the sell-off would make the existing shortage worse.

A petition will be handed in at Downing Street today, asking the government not to lift the current two-year ban on a type of pesticide called neonicotinoids. Farmers say the ban is damaging their ability to grow some crops, but the chief executive of the insect conservation charity Buglife tells Anna Hill that the ban should stay in place. 400,000 people have signed the online petition.

A company in Bedfordshire is looking for farmers to take up the challenge of growing algae for human consumption. Farms in Eastern Europe have been growing algae to add to animal feed for some time. Now the technology has come to the UK, and could be used as a food source.

Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Emma Campbell.

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