Farming Today This Week

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Farming Today

Magazines & Reviews

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside

BBC Radio 4 FM

Farming Today: 02/04/22 - Farming Today This Week: Australia Trade Deal and food waste

02/04/22 - Farming Today This Week: Australia Trade Deal and food waste

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 02/04/22 - Farming Today This Week: Australia Trade Deal and food waste

What will the UK-Australia Free Trade Deal mean for UK food and farming?

What do farmers in Australia make of the new Free Trade Deal with the UK?

This week the Trade and Agriculture Commission sent its advice to the Government on what the new Free Trade Agreement with Australia could mean for UK Food and Farming - although the report has yet to be made public. The FTA was signed at the end of last year, when the UK Government hailed it as a ‘world class deal’. The Australians called it a ‘once in a generation deal.. which will give farmers improved access to UK consumers’. But food and farming businesses here have been less enthusiastic - the deal will remove all import tariffs on meat from Australia after 15 years, and farmers point to differences in welfare standards to highlight their fears that cheaper imports produced in ways which wouldn’t be allowed here will undercut UK agriculture. So what do Australian producers think?

It’s been a week of major price hikes for all of us, and for farmers costs just seem to be going in one direction. The price of fertiliser, in particular, has been rocketing - with farmers telling us they've been asked to pay a thousand pounds a tonne - compared to two hundred and eighty pounds a tonne this time last year. The rise in input costs lead to MPs debating the UK's food security in Westminster Hall this week. But while much of the focus was on production, the latest figures from the food waste charity, WRAP, estimate just over 3% of food harvested is wasted before it gets to consumers. We hear from a farmer having to compost 500 tonnes of beetroot - and find out about a new app that hopes to solve the problem once and for all.

Presented by Caz Graham
Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Heather Simons

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Farming Today

02/04/22 - Farming Today This Week: Australia Trade Deal and food waste

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4