11/10/21 Pesticide regulation, history of science in agriculture, woodland ground cover plants

Farming Today

• Episode: 11/10/21 Pesticide regulation, history of science in agriculture, woodland ground cover plants
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:11:38
• Published: 2021-10-11 07:00

Today the science of farming - from the beginnings to the latest challenges. Regulating science for use on farms is a complicated business. We look at the Sustainable Action Plan for the use of pesticides in the UK. Alongside that the UK will have to develop its own system for approving and managing farm chemicals, to replace the EU regulations, and there are some arguments about how that should work. Scientific breakthroughs over the years have transformed agriculture, from the development of crop rotation and land drainage to inorganic fertilisers, pesticides and now gene editing. Some things didn’t work out as intended, others we take for granted and many have proved controversial. We discuss the history of science in agriculture. Thousands of acres of trees planted using Scottish government grants have failed to turn into proper woodlands, according to experts at Scotland’s Nature Agency, NatureScot. Many native tree plantations don’t have bluebells or holly and so, they say, don’t provide all the benefits they were meant to. Now a scheme has been launched to help farmers and land managers boost the 'infill' as it’s called, and help turn the trees into woods. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.