Country Focus

Farming news - we look back at the farmers' protest in London over the Agricultural Inheritance tax and look forward to the changes the Welsh Government will announce at this year's Royal Welsh Winter Fair on the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

Cegin y Bobl - a new Welsh charity is to form an army of chefs to change the way we eat and think about our food.

and we have a sneak preview of the Christmas tree that's been grown near Knighton, before it's chopped down and sent to London, to stand outside Number 10 Downing Street this year.

Overcrowding and lack of capacity in prisons has been dominating the headlines recently but at the UK's only prison dairy farm, state of the art milking machines have been installed, in the hope of improving the chance for prisoners to gain employment on release and cut reoffending rates. Mariclare Carey-Jones goes on a visit to Cilwrgi Farm, near Pontypool in the historic county of Monmouthshire and hears how it's a working dairy farm but with a difference - it's home to a herd of 120 pedigree Holstein cattle, managed by staff and prisoners working as a team at HMP Prescoed.

Climate Change: as world leaders gather at Baku, in Azerbaijan for COP 29 in the next two weeks we take a look at projects focused on tackling the impacts of climate change. We take a look at efforts to conserve a rare lichen at Dinefwr Park in Carmarthenshire and hear how slag waste could hold the key to better biodiversity.

It's good news for free range egg farmers with changes to the marketing of free-range eggs when hens are housed during Avian flu outbreak.

And for this month's bird of Conservation Concern we take a look at the small, golden, "king of the birds"

Open to applicants between the ages of 25 and 45, each year the Nuffield Foundation offers people working in farming, horticulture, forestry or other countryside industries an opportunity to study and travel overseas. Scholars are selected with a view to developing tomorrow’s leaders within their individual business and the industry as a whole. Caroline Evans meets some of this year's scholars from Wales and hears about their experiences

Restoring Welsh Rivers summit - we speak to the Archbishop of Wales about why the Church in Wales is getting involved in tackling our waterways and we hear how the Dean of St David's in Pembrokeshire is "doing the little things" and caring for a small river that runs by the Cathedral.

and for our Bird of Conservation concern, we're on a farm in Pembrokeshire to feed the Yellowhammers.

The eight-toothed spruce bark beetle - landowners across Wales are urged to be on the lookout for signs of a pest that has been found in Monmouthshire for the first time.

Agricultural pollution - a three month ban on muck-spreading came into force across Wales this week. We hear what it means for the industry and the environment

A community wetland - how a Welsh housing group has helped its tenants save an area of wetland in Cynon Taf, which was once intended for housing.

and in fine voice at a church in Llangollen, there's a revival of the ancient art of Gregorian chanting

This term a project is underway to redesign and build a resilient food supply. Called Welsh Veg in Schools it's a pilot project, co-ordinated by Food Sense Wales, that aims to get more organically produced Welsh veg into primary school meals across Wales. Caroline Evans visits Dinas Powys primary school in the Vale of Glamorgan to hear how it's going down with the kids at lunchtime! We visit grower, Bonvilston Edge producing vegetables for the scheme and Castell Howell who distribute them to the schools.

Bird Registration - from Tuesday, October 1st it will become a legal requirement for all bird keepers in Wales (and England) to register themselves with the Animal and Plant Health Agency.

Lapwing - some of Wales’ leading ornithologists have been focusing on the plight of our bird populations for Country Focus and this month it's the lapwing brought to us by Dave Anning who is the site manager for a wet and windy RSPB Ynys-hir reserve on the Dyfi estuary

Celtic wildlfower - we meet the Swansea ecologist who's on a mission to save our wildflowers

Pasta a Mano - we hear how the pop-up pastaria from Ceredigion, that won the British Street Food Awards recently, now goes on to compete in next weekends' European finals in Germany. Chef Derw Robertson-Jacobs to hear about the secret to his success of using local Welsh ingredients combined with Italian cuisine.

Upper Wye restoration - a new project to help restore the upper reaches of the River Wye. Caroline Evans hears how to tackle one of the threats spreading down the river ....the invasive skunk cabbage

Waxcap Watch - can you help secure the future of fungi in the UK? With some species at risk of extinction the conservation charity Plant Life is urging people to get involved in recording waxcaps.

Boosting biodiversity in Denbighshire - we hear about the local authority's plans to plans to reintroduce and increase numbers of native plants and trees across the county, including the rare 'wild service', or 'chequers' trees, whose fruit used to be eaten by children as sweets!

Affineur of the year - refining cheese to it's full potential! We meet the winner of the title Owen Davies who took his inspiration from the mining heritage of Wales and applied it to maturing a cheddar in replicated “coal cave"

The social dimensions of Bovine TB - an annual conference at Aberystwyth's Centre of Excellence this week, will examine how bringing people together can help tackle TB control in cattle

A stables with a difference - how bitless bridles and a clicker, like those often used for training dogs are being used to train ponies in Pontypridd

and the Swansea canal - we meet the volunteers restoring nature to the waterway where once upon a time a hive of industry flowed.