Farming Today

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Farming Today: 11/04/24 - Wet weather impacts, farming recovering fund, pigs on straw and farming in space

11/04/24 - Wet weather impacts, farming recovering fund, pigs on straw and farming in space

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, 11/04/24 - Wet weather impacts, farming recovering fund, pigs on straw and farming in space

The relentless, grim weather is having an impact on farmers' mental health.

Does the Farming Recovery Fund go far enough?

The UK Government's Farming Recovery Fund had opened to help farmers badly hit by Storm Henck back in January to pay for repairs to their land. The fund provides those who are eligible with up to £25,000 but some flood-hit farmers say they won't get as much as they'd hoped, because the pay outs only apply to fields within 150m of specific rivers.

There are many different ways of rearing pigs. Piglets can either be born indoors or outdoors, then once they're weaned most are reared inside. There, they can either be housed in barns with a slatted floor, which allows the muck to drain through, or they can be raised in barns with straw bedding. We visit a farm where straw bedding is the chosen option.

And a London-based agri-tech firm has been awarded one and half million pounds by the UK Space Agency to try and develop a prototype farm for low-Earth orbit.  Vertical Future will use the money to adapt its existing vertical farming system - which involves growing plants in stacked layers in a controlled, indoor environment. It's hoped it can eventually be deployed on the first commercial space station, set to be fully operational by 2030.

Presented by Steffan Messenger
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons

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Farming Today

11/04/24 - Wet weather impacts, farming recovering fund, pigs on straw and farming in space

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