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Farming Today: Lavender Harvest

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31/08/2015

Lavender Harvest

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Lavender Harvest

Emma Campbell finds out about the lavender harvest at a farm in the Cotswolds.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. Emma Campbell visits Cotswold Lavender in Gloucestershire, to find out about the annual lavender harvest.

When farmer Charlie Byrd was looking to diversify his arable farm near Broadway in the Cotswolds, he came up with the idea of growing lavender. Now the lavender is his chief source of income, bringing in more than the traditional wheat and barley which he still grows. The farm gets up to 20,000 tourists a year, attracted by the swathes of purple which cover the hillside, and by the the farm shop which sells everything from lavender soap to lavender chocolate. The oil is extracted from the plants on site, using the farm's specially-built lavender distillery. Emma Campbell visits the farm at harvest time, to find out how you go about harvesting and distilling lavender, and what kind of products it ends up in.

Produced and presented by Emma Campbell.

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