Farming Today

13/11/20 Bird flu, wet peat planting, compromises in farming systems

Farming Today

England, Wales and Scotland have been declared an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone. It follows outbreaks of bird flu on farms in Herefordshire, Kent and Cheshire. Wild birds in Gloucestershire, Devon and Dorset have also tested positive for the highly contagious H5N8 strain. The risk to humans is very low, but the risk to birds is high. The disease is spread by migrating birds coming into contact with free range flocks or their droppings making their way into hen houses via someone’s boot. The peat lands of the Fens are usually used by farmers to grow high value vegetable crops such as lettuce and celery. But ploughing up peat soils releases massive amounts of carbon. If the peat was kept under water, it would instead be a valuable carbon sink. A new field trial is using wet peat lands in the Great Fen to grow crops. All this week we've been hearing from young people about what they’d change in food and farming and why. The challenges facing agriculture are huge, from producing more food to reducing emissions to help tackle climate change. Harriett Bartlett is a PhD student at Cambridge looking at different ways of raising pigs and how to work out which system is best for people, the planet, and the pigs. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

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πŸ“† 2020-11-12 07:00 / βŒ› 00:13:41