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Farming Today: Food labels, Cauliflower pickers, Wolves and Shark tagging

15/06/2018

Food labels, Cauliflower pickers, Wolves and Shark tagging

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Food labels, Cauliflower pickers, Wolves and Shark tagging

Charlotte Smith asks what the words 'traditional' and 'natural' on food labels really mean

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. The programme looks at 'misleading' food labels, robotic vegetable pickers, grey wolves rewilding and shark conservation.

Food producers who label their goods as 'traditional' or 'natural' are misleading shoppers according to the European consumer organisation BEUC. It's calling for tougher rules on the words and images used on food labels to avoid deception.

Robotic vegetable pickers which mimic humans are being created by researchers at the University of Plymouth. The newest prototype will tackle the tricky task of harvesting cauliflowers and it will soon be trialled in the vegetable fields of West Cornwall.

The idea of reintroducing wolves into remote parts of Scotland isn't new and has proved controversial. Now a team of researchers from the Universities of Sussex and Kent have suggested that if wolves are to be effective at reducing red deer numbers, they need to be rewilded into a large fenced reserve.

Anglers and shore walkers in Northern Ireland are being encouraged to get involved in a new conservation project to protect sharks. There are around 20 different species of shark in UK waters and they are among our most endangered marine life. 

Presented by Charlotte Smith.
Produced by Vernon Harwood.

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