26/10/21 - Staff shortages, meeting Romanian workers and herbal leys

Farming Today

• Episode: 26/10/21 - Staff shortages, meeting Romanian workers and herbal leys
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:41
• Published: 2021-10-26 07:00

The Association of Labour Providers has told us staff shortages in the food supply chain are unprecedented, bleak, and on-going. A recent survey of their members found 99% of labour providers couldn't meet their clients needs for workers in the last 3 months, and 75% say they will not be able to meet demand in the run up to Christmas. We find out how recruitment is going after the announcement of new short term visas for seasonal poultry workers. One country where recruitment is taking place is Romania. We sent the BBC’s Central Europe correspondent on a tour of farms there to ask people there if they want to work in the UK. And continuing our week long focus on grass, we look at herbal leys. A multi-species ley is a mixture of plants including grass, grown in a field for a limited time to provide food for livestock, or improve soil structure and fix nitrogen for future arable crops. We visit a research station run by a seed company in Wiltshire, where scientists are testing out various combinations of seeds. Could herbal leys hold some of the answers to issues like increasing weather resilience, improving biodiversity and reaching net zero. Presented by Anna Hill Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons