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Farming Today: 08/12/23 Food security report; Bluefin tuna; Young farmers at COP28

08/12/23 Food security report; Bluefin tuna; Young farmers at COP28

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 08/12/23 Food security report; Bluefin tuna; Young farmers at COP28

New report says food security is a public good and farmers should be paid accordingly.

A new report from MPs says food security is a public good and should be included in government land use plans for agriculture.

Food Security is a public good and the government should use England's post-Brexit environmental payment system to incentivise it - so say MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee in a new report. Food was excluded when the new system of public money for public goods was introduced - the argument being that the market rewards farmers for growing food and public money should be used to reward them for other services, like improving soil or planting trees. This report though, says the Environmental Land Management Schemes or ELMs, should be used to encourage a shift 'towards a resilient food system while also balancing environmental change'. The MP who chairs the committee says the government shouldn't take food security for granted.

Fishermen in the south west of England have been catching and selling bluefin tuna as part of a new pilot fishery. Seven licences have been issued in Cornwall, two in Devon and one in Scotland. The fish weigh around 250 kilograms and can sell for several thousand pounds. The trial has been extended until the end of the year because of bad weather, but  some conservationists are concerned. 

COP28 has for the first time this year, had more emphasis on food and farming - and so more farmers are there to put forward their views. From US ranchers to European farmers and smallholders from Milawi. We've been speaking to two young famers from the World Farmers' Organisation who have been at COP to put forward the youth voice in agriculture - an organic apple grower from Italy and a poultry farmer from Zimbabwe.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith
Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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