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Farming Today: 19/02/22 Farming Today This Week: Storms, sea eagles and bees or beets

19/02/22 Farming Today This Week: Storms, sea eagles and bees or beets

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 19/02/22 Farming Today This Week: Storms, sea eagles and bees or beets

The row in Dorset about farmers, eagles and policing, plus other news from this week.

The unexplained deaths of two young sea eagles, released as part of a programme to reintroduce the UK’s largest bird of prey to the south of England, are being investigated by police in Dorset. The Dorset West MP Chris Loder has angered conservationists by stating that Dorset is ‘not the place’ to reintroduce eagles and that he’d prefer police time and resources to be prioritised elsewhere. 

The Wildlife Trusts are mounting a challenge to the Government’s green light to the emergency use of neonicotinoid insecticides on sugar beet seed being planted this spring.  The use of neonics, as they’re called, is controversial as they were almost totally banned across the UK and Europe in 2018 when they were found to cause harm to bees and other pollinators.  In sugar beet, the chemical treatment is coated on the seed and it targets aphids which carry virus yellows that can severely damage the crop.  63% of the UK’s sugar comes from beet grown here at home and the Government says that emergency measures are needed to protect supplies.

Storm Eunice hit the UK yesterday, and with red weather warnings issued many farmers had time to prepare, as much as anyone can, for what was expected to be one of the worst storms in 30 years.  Liz and Rob Priest farm beef cattle and sheep near Holsworthy in Devon and also have a farm near Bude.  We speak to them as the storm buffeted their farm.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

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