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Farming Today: 20/01/24 Environmental targets; Neonicotinoids; Risk of animal disease at ports; LAMMA show and AI drone mapping; Kaleb's rap.

20/01/24 Environmental targets; Neonicotinoids; Risk of animal disease at ports; LAMMA show and AI drone mapping; Kaleb's rap.

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 20/01/24 Environmental targets; Neonicotinoids; Risk of animal disease at ports; LAMMA show and AI drone mapping; Kaleb's rap.

Government doing too little too slowly to meet its own environmental ambitions says report

Government is too slow on its environmental ambitions, says report from the Office of Environmental Protection.

The Government is doing too little, too slowly, to meet its own environmental ambitions and statutory commitments, according to a report published by the Office for Environmental Protection.

Neonicotinoid pesticides have been approved for emergency use for the fourth year in a row. That's an exemption to a ban that's been in place in the UK and the EU since 2013. The seed treatment for sugar beet seed makes them resistant to a crop virus spread by aphids called virus yellows. Environmentalists say the pesticide poisons the soil and water courses, and affect plants and the bees that feed on them. Farmers say the regulations around them are stricter in the UK than in Europe but the way forward is to develop breeds of plant that are resistant to the aphids.

Farmers warn that cuts to, and changes in, inspections at the Port of Dover raise the risk of animal disease being brought into the UK. The Government wants to cut the budget for spot checks for illegal meat in cars and coaches by 70%, and later this year plans to move the new post-Brexit inspections of commercial traffic from Dover to an inland site. 

The LAMMA Show took place in Birmingham this week with 600 exhibitors show casing the very latest in farm machinery and innovation, everything from specialist soil-aeration machinery to farm solar energy systems, and of course, enormous tractors.

Drone tech is often touted as the next big thing in agriculture. But how useful is it? Plymouth University  is working on a project to map biodiversity on farm using artificial intelligence.

Kaleb Cooper, the star of the TV series "Clarkson's Farm" has recorded a rap to raise money for RABI - the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution. 

Presenter = Charlotte Smith
Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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20/01/24 Environmental targets; Neonicotinoids; Risk of animal disease at ports; LAMMA show and AI drone mapping; Kaleb's rap.

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