02/09/21 - Trade and Agriculture Commission, picker shortage and hop breeding

Farming Today

• Episode: 02/09/21 - Trade and Agriculture Commission, picker shortage and hop breeding
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:28
• Published: 2021-09-02 07:00

The former head of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, Tim Smith, says he "can’t think of a single coherent reason" why the Government still hasn’t responded to its report or set up the statutory body which was to replace it. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was created last summer to advise Ministers on trade deals, after concerns that giving tariff free access to our markets could undermine UK farming and food businesses. Its report, with 22 recommendations, was published in March - at which point it was disbanded to be replaced with a new commission which would examine future trade agreements. But the new TAC hasn’t yet appeared. A farm in Yorkshire which is offering free raspberries to anyone who wants to come and pick them, because it can’t find enough workers to bring the fruit in. We meet Richard and Rhonda Merrit, who farm near York, and have 700 metres of raspberries across 4 polytunnels. And, we find out about a project to cultivate new varieties of hops. Hops are notoriously vulnerable to disease and pests in the UK’s temperate climate, leaving conventional growers heavily reliant on a dwindling number of agrichemicals, and organic growers facing crop failures too frequently to be commercially reliable.  To tackle this issue, a field lab, run through the Innovative Farmers programme, is bringing together organic hop growers and breeders to conduct on-farm research, trialling new hop varieties selectively bred to be resistant to pests and disease, and testing to see how well they grow without pesticides. Presented by Charlotte Smith Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons