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Farming Today: 28/11/23 - Swine flu in a human, a rural housing crisis and Brecklands landscape recovery

28/11/23 - Swine flu in a human, a rural housing crisis and Brecklands landscape recovery

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 28/11/23 - Swine flu in a human, a rural housing crisis and Brecklands landscape recovery

The UK Health Security Agency is investigating after it emerged a human has caught swine flu. We hear what it means for pig farmers and the rest of us.

Swine flu has been diagnosed in pigs on 33 farms in the UK so far this year. But now, it's been diagnosed in a human. The person, in North Yorkshire, is now fully recovered after what's described as a 'mild illness', but the UK Health Security Agency is investigating. We ask what this means for pig farmers, and the rest of us.

The CPRE, the Countryside Charity, describes the shortage of affordable housing in the English countryside as "acute and overlooked" in a report out today. It says rural homelessness has risen by 40% in the last five years, driven by record house prices, long waiting lists for social housing and a proliferation of second and holiday homes. 

And we visit the Brecklands in East Anglia. It's an unusual landscape covering 400 square miles across Norfolk and Suffolk which, despite having poor soil, is an growing veg, pigs, sheep and free range poultry - along side being home to 12,000 wild plants and rare birds like the nightjar and the stone curlew. Now, a group of more than 50 Breckland farmers have joined together to take part in a Government funded Landscape Recovery Scheme, to try and improve the habitats there.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons

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