Defenceless sweet veg, Soft fruit pickers, County farms

Farming Today

• Episode: Defenceless sweet veg, Soft fruit pickers, County farms
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:34
• Published: 2018-06-12 07:02

Farmers are growing sweeter veg but the compounds which make them taste bitter is also a defence against pests. Professor John Pickett explains to Anna Hill how this happens and what it means for both farmers and consumers. Cliff Besley, a strawberry grower in Chedder in Somerset tells Emma Rushton from BBC Somerset about his struggles to find European workers to pick his fruit, why workers from this country aren't so willing to get their hands dirty, and the impact this is having on his business. For our week on robotics in farming BBC Look North's Luxmy Gopal reports on the technology which could mean farmers get an early warning for crop diseases, before they can be seen in the field, with the help of a robotic camera and a smartphone. Environmentalist Guy Shrubsole tells Anna Hill why the decline in County farms represents an immediate problem to young farmers, and an existential crisis for the country. Producer: Toby Field.