25/02/2020 - Food standards, powered pasture and the consequences of the floods

Farming Today

• Episode: 25/02/2020 - Food standards, powered pasture and the consequences of the floods
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:40
• Published: 2020-02-25 07:00

As the NFU conference kicks off in Birmingham, the union's President, Minette Batters, is urging the Government to ensure that British farm standards set the benchmark, which has to be met by any food imports in future trade deals. The NFU has repeatedly stressed that allowing in foods like chlorine washed chicken and hormone treated beef from the US, would undercut British farmers, since it would be illegal to produce food that way in the UK. But in a recent interview, the DEFRA Secretary George Eustice suggested there could be some compromise. Red meat production is often blamed for contributing to green house gas emissions, but we visit one farmer in Perthshire who believes cattle can be part of the solution. Can careful management of grassland act as a carbon sink as well as improving efficiency and productivity? And after days of rain, fields across the UK are waterlogged and drilling has been delayed and in some cases abandoned. So what will it mean for this summer's harvests? Presented by Anna Hill Produced by Heather Simons