12/05/21 - Government plans for Animal Welfare, AHDB Strategic Farms, and 'nature based solutions'.

Farming Today

• Episode: 12/05/21 - Government plans for Animal Welfare, AHDB Strategic Farms, and 'nature based solutions'.
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:36
• Published: 2021-05-12 07:00

The government is launching a new action plan for animal welfare. It's wide ranging, with a headline promise to recognise animal sentience in law. That recognition was added to EU law back in 1997 under the Amsterdam Treaty, but since Brexit, animal welfare campaign groups had been worried it could be lost here. The action plan also mentions the introduction of new laws to crack down on illegal hare coursing and plans to give police more powers to protect farm animals from dogs. There are also plans to 'improve animal welfare at slaughter' and 'examine the use of cages for poultry and farrowing crates for pigs'. Continuing our focus on on-farm trials, we visit one of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board's Strategic Farm projects. The Barker family’s arable farm at Westhorpe in Suffolk is currently in year four of a six-year whole-farm trial. They're investigating the costs of inputs on wheat; the long term benefits of flower strips in cereal fields; and how to improve the quality of water coming off arable land. And can we use nature to address a series of issues, including climate change, biodiversity and even our health and the economy? The British Ecological Society says it has published, for the first time, a complete assessment of the potential for using nature across the UK. But, it warns that ‘nature based solutions’ are NOT a substitute for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or a panacea for meeting Net Zero by 2050. Presented By Anna Hill Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons