14/09/26 Calls for more farm co-ops, Hereford cattle dispute, flax and hemp

'Shambolic', 'disheartening' and 'carnage' - some of the words being used by farmers to describe the application process for England's biggest farm environmental scheme that opened, and closed, on Tuesday. This is the Sustainable Farming Incentive, which pays farmers for environmental work, like planting hedges or improving soil. On Tuesday, the total budget available was £233 million, it was a first come, first served system, with thousands of farmers applying and in six hours all the money had gone. And baked beans - which we are talking about as part of our week looking at pulses. At the moment, all our baked beans are imported from China, Ethiopia, the USA and Canada. Three years ago, we visited Lincolnshire farmer Andrew Ward who was growing the first-ever British variety of baked bean. He's been working alongside the University of Warwick with a view to breaking into the market. This year he’s grown 42 acres nearly three times the amount he first planted in 2023. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

Vets in the South West are testing breeding rams to see if the disease bluetongue has caused infertility. One vets practice in Devon said of the 500 rams they've tested, a quarter were a cause for concern. One farmer we spoke to has had to buy in extra rams to replace those found to be temporarily infertile. There's a warning the breeding season could be delayed, leading to fewer early lambs next year. The second window of funding for environmental schemes on farms has opened - and closed within hours. The Sustainable Farming Incentive is the Government's fund to pay farmers for things like improving soil and creating wildlife habitat. The budget of £233m was all allocated within six hours. And we speak to a Malawian student who's in the UK looking at what farmers here could learn about growing pulses - a staple crop there but not widespread here. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Sally Challoner.

UK potato growers could be facing losses of almost £170 million because of this summer’s heatwaves and drought. That’s according to new analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a not-for-profit organisation which looks at the impacts of climate change. Add that to crop losses across Europe’s main potato growing countries - Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands - and we could be looking at 3.5 million tonnes fewer potatoes getting into the shops. We're looking at pulses this week. They're the dried edible seeds of plants in the legume family, they grow in pods and we’re talking things like beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils. Here in the UK, they’ve generally been grown as what’s called a ‘break crop’ by arable farmers to put nitrogen back into the soil, and then used for making animal feed. But growing pulses for human consumption comes with the prospect of bigger rewards. Today, we're in Carmarthenshire where they're carrying out trials growing Carlin Peas on a county council owned farm. Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Sally Challoner.

More beans please - should the UK be growing more pulses? The Food Foundation looked into the potential for these crops and concluded that the UK could and should be growing more of them.Farmers may have to prepare for disappointment as England's biggest environmental scheme re-opens for applications this week. This is the Sustainable Farming Incentive, the SFI, which pays farmers for environmental work. New analysis suggests that while 40,000 farmers are expected to apply for the SFI there is only enough cash for about 15,000 agreements. And how, with help from the Royal Countryside Fund, the West Lakeland Community Interest Company has put four young people through a series of training courses to become agricultural advisors.Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

This week, we've been taking a closer look at agricultural co-ops, from very small-scale cooperative working up to huge dairy co-ops. Across Europe, it’s widely recognised that farmer collaboration can give agriculture a stronger voice in the food supply chain.   We look at how they are working in different parts of the UK and ask if there is scope for more co-operative working.The BBC's Central Europe correspondent, Nick Thorpe, reports from Romania, where thousands of shepherds have taken to the streets to protest against a ban on live sheep exports.Reporter Vernon Harwood is in the Cotswolds to bring us all the atmosphere of the three-day competition to find the best sheepdog handler in Britain and Ireland.And we talk to the team behind a new play which follows a single day in the life of three generations of women on a working family farm. Presenter:  Charlotte Smith Producer:  Beatrice Fenton Farming Today is a BBC Audio Bristol production

Party conference season is underway and so we'll be catching up with the rural and farming policies of the main parties around the UK over the next few weeks. The Liberal Democrats open their meeting in Brighton tomorrow. They're renewing their call for the government to protect food security by funding more on-farm reservoirs, so farmers can cope with increasingly frequent drought and deluge. The Lib Dem's Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs spokesperson, Tim Farron, tells us how the party would go about increasing DEFRA's budget.Conservationists are working to save a tiny snail which has been driven to extinction across most of the UK and can now only be found in Wales' largest natural lake.  Several British zoos are setting up populations of the Glutinous Snail, one of Europe's rarest species, using creatures bred in a back garden in Ceredigion.  Ecologist Ian Hughes has made it his "life-defining" mission to protect the threatened mollusc, which was once widespread in UK waters. Today the finalists for the BBC Food & Farming Awards are announced. Charlotte Smith reveals the finalists for The Archers and Farming Today 'Farming for the Future Award'. A new play inspired by the best-selling memoir The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks will have its world premiere tonight in Cumbria. It follows a single day in the life of three generations of women on a working family farm. We take a peek behind the scenes.Presenter: Charlotte Smith Producer: Sarah Swadling

There have been violent clashes during big farmer protests in Romania. Thousands of shepherds have been demonstrating in the capital Bucharest about an extension to a ban on the export of live sheep. We speak to the BBC's Central Europe correspondent to find out why.The battle to find the best sheepdog handler in Britain and Ireland has been won by a Welsh hill farmer for the second year. After a three day competition in the Cotswolds, he's been named the 2026 International Sheepdog Society Supreme Champion.All this week we’re looking at the work of agricultural cooperatives. In Scotland more than 50 farm coops serve around 25,000 members on everything from supply chain development, to branding and quality assurance. One of them is Scottish Agronomy, established in 1984, and now offering cropping advice to more than 200 members across Scotland and northern England. Each year they run crop trials across 30,000 plots, and it’s the sharing of their findings, knowledge and expertise, they say, that keeps them ahead of the game.Presenter = Caz Graham Producer = Rebecca Rooney

Farmers have been assessing the damage done by the summer's severe drought, but it's not just low crop yields they've had to face. Woodlands have also suffered, especially younger trees which haven't had time to get fully established, which can take up to five years. In 2024-25 just over 10 million individual trees were planted in England. How many of those have died? And what can farmers do if they've planted trees using grant money but now have thousands of dead saplings on their land? We speak to The Woodland Trust.The government's holding a wildfire summit next month - and MPs have been questioning ministers about how they handled wildfires over the summer and whether England was fully prepared to tackle them. On the day that the first Scottish Licences for burning moorland were open for applications, the Environment Food and Rural Affairs committee also discussed reducing fuel load on hillsides in England.We all like to get a bargain, and it’s often the case that the bigger you are as a buyer, the more likely you are to find one. It’s the same for farmers, and many have joined buying groups to source everything from seed, fertiliser, fuel and chemicals right down to mobile phones and stationery. All week we're looking at agricultural cooperatives, today it's a big one in Lincolnshire.Presenter = Anna Hill Producer = Rebecca Rooney

The former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett has told the government to 'reset' it's rural policy, and 'learn from its mistakes' with inheritance tax. Speaking at an event launching the Countryside Alliance's 'Campaign for The Countryside', he said the government should also “set aside pro­pos­als to ban trail hunt­ing” and he warned that “for our coun­tryside to be sus­tain­able, it requires a listen­ing gov­ern­ment.” We speak to the former NFU President Minette Batters who was also at the launch.Over the summer you've probably seen the massive combine harvesters crawling across the fields to cut grain, but what if you’ve got a very small patch of cereal crops, how do you harvest it? Most contractors with combines won’t even look at a couple of acres, so what do you do? A community farm near Edinburgh has been struggling to find answers.All week we're taking a closer look at farming co-ops. They're usually formed of a group of farmers so they have more clout when selling their products, they also share information with each other about benchmarking and new innovations. Arla Foods is the biggest producer of dairy products in the UK and Europe's largest dairy co-operative. Its 9,000 multi-national farmer-owners not only share in the profits, but play an active role in deciding how the business is run. We visit farmers who're part of it on a Cumbrian dairy farm in the Eden valley.Presenter = Anna Hill Producer = Rebecca Rooney

We hear calls for more ‘cooperative working’, to give farmers a louder voice in the food supply chain.When is a Hereford cow not a Hereford cow? How a dispute about breed purity has ended up in the High Court.And cultivating hemp and flax for building materials is now the focus of a trial project on a number of farms in Dorset.Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Beatrice Fenton.