‘Farming Today’ and ‘On Your Farm’ are a long-established, well-loved part of the Radio 4 schedule. But how did agriculture on the air begin? A century ago radio was the wonder of the age with the newly-formed BBC offering an astounded public a nightly menu of news bulletins, chamber music and children’s stories. Farming broadcasts soon followed and were keeping listeners in touch with rural life long before the first radio drama, sports commentary or record programme had crackled in to the ether. In the century since, the strictly-scripted agricultural studio talk of the 1920s and ‘30s has evolved beyond recognition, and along the way brought fame and fan mail to the most unlikely of ‘stars’; a university farm manager, a Times newspaper correspondent and a Surrey horticulturalist. We look back at a hundred years of rural broadcasting, and the programmes that have been made for – and about – farmers. As we delve in to the archives, we’ll find out what’s changed over the last ten decades; what in the past is surprisingly familiar to us now; and discover how we’ve arrived where we are today.

Presented by Charlotte Smith

Produced by Vernon Harwood

Picture: The BBC's head of agricultural programmes, John Green, at home on his Cotswold farm on 17th March 1945.

Interviewed guest: Jeannie Hamilton

Interviewed guest: Jim Heffer

Interviewed guest: Tom Hercock

Interviewed guest: Robin Hicks

Interviewed guest: Anna Hill

Interviewed guest: Felicity Peake

Interviewed guest: Rebecca Pow MP

Interviewed guest: Robert Seatter

Interviewed guest: Richard Willmott

Interviewed guest: Robert Young

Reader: David Wethey

Archive material used in this programme:

The End of Savoy Hill; National Programme, 14/05/1932

6BM Calling; BBC Radio 3, 31/03/2004

Today in the South & West; West of England Home Service, 18/11/1964

Auntie, Uncle and Mr Mike; BBC Radio 4, 01/01/1974

The Farming Week – 60th Anniversary Special; BBC Radio 4, 25/03/1989

Farming Today – Robin Hicks; BBC Radio 4, 25/05/1972

Dig for Victory – R.S. Hudson; BBC Home Service, 10/09/1940

In Your Garden – C.H. Middleton; BBC Home Service, 03/12/1944

Radio Allotment; BBC Home Service, 18/04/1942

Post War Careers – Irene Hilton; BBC Home Service, 07/06/1945

Farming Today – Hill flocks; BBC Home Service, 10/02/1944

Farming Today – Cattle at the Crossroads; BBC Home Service 11/11/1943

Farming Today – Pig farming; BBC Home Service, 09/03/1944

On Your Farm; BBC Radio 4, 29/01/1983

The Oral History of the BBC; John Green video interview, 19/11/1992

The Oral History of the BBC; John Green audio interview, 01/09/1989

The Farming Week – CLA Game Fair; BBC Radio 4, 01/08/1987

Pick of the Year; BBC Radio 4, 29/12/1989

Royal Welsh Show; BBC Wales, 21/07/1987

Plague ’67; BBC Radio 4, 06/12/1967

Six o’clock News; BBC Radio 4, 19/02/2001

Farming Today – EU referendum result; BBC Radio 4, 24/06/2016

Asian Club – Richard Dimbleby; BBC General Overseas Service, 27/04/1964