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Farming Today: 15 years since foot-and-mouth, Dementia among farmers, Food provenance passport scheme

19/02/2016

15 years since foot-and-mouth, Dementia among farmers, Food provenance passport scheme

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 15 years since foot-and-mouth, Dementia among farmers, Food provenance passport scheme

Caz Graham marks the 15th anniversary of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth.

Caz Graham marks the 15th anniversary of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth by visiting the mass livestock burial ground in Cumbria that is now a flourishing nature reserve.

Caz Graham marks the fifteenth anniversary of the outbreak of Foot and Mouth by visiting Cumbria's mass livestock burial ground that's now a flourishing nature reserve. Nearly half of the farms infected were in the Lake District, and disposing of the piles of dead livestock became a real problem. Some were burnt but there were concerns that the vast plumes of smoke from infected animals may be a health hazard. Eventually a mass burial site was established on a former RAF airfield near Carlisle. Half a million animals were buried at Watchtree but now 15 years on, Caz finds out that it's now a nature reserve.

What happens to farms when the head of the family, often the head of the business, suffers from the effects of dementia? Reverend Canon Barbara Clutton, who's the 'Rural Life Officer' for the Coventry diocese, and a Trustee of the Farm Community Network explains that the impact of dementia can first become apparent with problems handling the farm paperwork.

With just under a million horses and many leisure riders in the UK blacksmiths are very much in demand. Owen Mort used to be a welder in a shipyard but he's retrained as a blacksmith. BBC Northern Ireland's Agriculture and Environment Correspondent, Conor Macauley, meets him.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Mark Smalley.

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