A new Minister at DEFRA, struggling rural services, ambulance response times and how to reward farmers for soil health

Farming Today

• Episode: A new Minister at DEFRA, struggling rural services, ambulance response times and how to reward farmers for soil health
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:40
• Published: 2019-03-06 07:00

Who is the new Minister at DEFRA? Robert Goodwill is MP for Scarborough and Whitby and farms 250 acres of land near Malton. He sits on the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee. His Ministerial responsibilities include: fisheries, food, farming and innovation. After years of cuts to local Government and the loss of EU funding after Brexit, how are our rural services faring? And will the Government's newly announced £1.6 billion over the next 7 years for less well-off towns in England, make any difference? We visit one community which is being creative when it comes to rural services, with a social enterprise to tackle loneliness and isolation. And BBC research shows ambulance response times in many rural areas can be 50% longer than in urban areas. Presented by Anna Hill Produced by Heather Simons