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Farming Today: Farming in the Cradle of Christianity

Farming in the Cradle of Christianity

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Farming in the Cradle of Christianity

What's it like farming on the Isle of Iona, which gets more than 100,000 visitors a year?

On the Isle of Iona, Nancy Nicolson meets a farmer who has to work around ancient religious monuments and cope with thousands of tourists.

The Hebridean Isle of Iona is 1.5 miles wide and 3 miles long, with a population of around 120 permanent residents. But each year, the island attracts over 100,000 visitors.

It has been a centre of pilgrimage for centuries and is now home to the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian organisation whose members are spread across the globe. This Community together with the historic Iona Abbey, other religious ruins and the island's legendary beauty, has created a tourist mecca which overruns the island during the summer months. And that means farmers on the island need to be adaptive and infinitely tolerant if they want to continue to operate here too.

Presented and produced by Nancy Nicolson

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