Farming Today

09/09/20 Plumpton College fined over pollution, Robots on soft fruit farms

Farming Today

An agricultural college in Sussex has been fined £50,000 and ordered to pay another £45,000 in costs, after being prosecuted by the Environment Agency for polluting a river with slurry. The pollution from Plumpton College killed 1,500 fish in 2016, at a site which is important for breeding brown trout. Anna Hill talks to both the Environment Agency and the college's principal, to find out what went wrong. Continuing a week-long look at automation on farms, we find out about a new research project which has just been given two and a half million pounds of government money to test a range of different farm robots for the fruit-growing sector. Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Emma Campbell.

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