Raven attacks on lambs, Food Assembly, Crops for bio-mass benefit the brown hare

Farming Today

• Episode: Raven attacks on lambs, Food Assembly, Crops for bio-mass benefit the brown hare
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:36
• Published: 2017-05-09 02:00

Reports of flocks of raven targeting very young lambs and killing them are growing. It seems the birds, which are protected, will gang up on lambs showing weakness and systematically destroy them. A national project called the Food Assembly enables people to buy their food direct from the producer at a farmers' market, but pre-order it online. Beccles in Suffolk has just joined the Food Assembly, thanks to 22 yr old Chloe Donovan whose grandmother Margaret Hall set up the original farmers market. A new study has found that non-native crops grown for bio-mass could benefit the endangered brown hare. Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Hull and the Open University have discovered that crops like elephant grass - or miscanthus - attract hares because they are left undisturbed for much of the year. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Beatrice Fenton.