Farming Today

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Farming Today: 16/05/23 Food summit preview; glasshouse growers; rewilding former golf course.

16/05/23 Food summit preview; glasshouse growers; rewilding former golf course.

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 16/05/23 Food summit preview; glasshouse growers; rewilding former golf course.

Downing Street food summit; growing under glass; former golf course rewilded.

Prime minister invites people from food and farming industry to food summit at Downing Street.
Half of Lea Valley glasshouse growers not planting.
Former golf course rewilded.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is holding a 'farm to fork' summit at Downing Street with people from the farming and food industries. They'll be discussing the whole of the food chain, from the high costs farmers are facing to produce our food, to the shortage of labour for harvesting and processing. They'll be talking about transparency in the food chain - and how consumers facing the cost of living crisis can be supplied with UK-grown, affordable food. We find out what farmers want from it, and from the former food Tsar Henry Dimbleby who's hasn't got an invite, but tells us what he expects will be discussed.

All week we're talking about growing under glass. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of people and the combination of war in Ukraine and Brexit, made both energy expensive and staff hard to get hold of. As a result, many farmers in Lea Valley, which covers more than 180 hectares of glasshouses run by 80 growers, decided to stop production altogether.  We catch up with Lea Valley Growers to find out whether things have improved.

A former golf course in Kent is being re-wilded under a scheme which raises money by selling carbon credits to companies wanting to improve their environmental credentials. Heather Corrie Vale is a 125-acre site near Sevenoaks and is one of the first to benefit from Kent Wildlife Trust's Wilder Carbon initiative. 

Presenter = Anna Hill
Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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16/05/23 Food summit preview; glasshouse growers; rewilding former golf course.

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