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Farming Today: 15/05/23 Glasshouses, lowland peat emissions, King Charles III coast path

15/05/23 Glasshouses, lowland peat emissions, King Charles III coast path

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 15/05/23 Glasshouses, lowland peat emissions, King Charles III coast path

Food is high on the political agenda this week, with the Prime Minister holding a food summit at Downing street tomorrow. With high food price inflation following egg and salad shortages on supermarket shelves its perhaps not surprising that there is a summit, and we will of course be there. 
All this week we're looking at growing under glass. This year growers struggled with higher energy and fertiliser bills and some simply didn't plant, but the Government is keen to grow the sector. We hear from Professor Richard Napier from the University of Warwick on the challenges and opportunities for the sector.

Some of the best growing land in the country is drained lowland  peatland. It's good for raising veg but bad for emissions as it releases both C02 and nitrous oxide. To cut emissions we could re-flood the drained land but that would have an impact on food production.  To work out the pros and cons scientists are now measuring the emissions from drained peatlands, and Anna Hill has been to Cambridgeshire to meet Dr Ross Morrison, Bio-meterologist with the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

The trail around the English coast will be, when it's complete, the longest managed coastal trail in the world. It's now called the King Charles the third coast path, and a new section has recently opened in East Yorkshire.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

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