A new report says racist abuse is too often "tolerated or even normalised" in the English countryside, with many incidents going unreported by victims. Researchers from the University of Leicester spoke to 115 people and 20 community groups over two years, for their Rural Racism Project. They found that it wasn't just visitors to the countryside who suffered abuse, but those who are living within rural communities as well.

The UK dairy sector has had a pretty successful year. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, which works with farmers and food producers on international trade, says that European demand for UK dairy exports reached a record 1.1 billion pounds in the first half of 2025, that's a 20 percent jump from last year. Exports to the USA and Asia also rose. How sustainable is this trend, especially with the impact of drought on dairy producers in some parts of the country?

All this week we're looking at the business of livestock feed. What's grown to feed animals and how it's produced, can have a big impact on carbon emissions. Farmers are being encouraged to grow pulses to replace imported soya which can lead to deforestation. We visit a livestock farmer who's been trialling it as part of a nationwide project.

Presenter = Anna Hill

Changes to the costs, paperwork and bureaucracy that are hampering agri-food exports from Great Britain to the European Union won’t be in place until 2027. Nick Thomas–Symonds, the Minister for EU Relations, has been setting out his priorities for the future of the UK-EU relationship in a speech in front of industry representatives and journalists. We speak to trade expert David Henig and hear how food exporters are 'disappointed' that barriers to trade won't be removed sooner.

The pig and poultry industries is damaging our rivers and countryside, according to a report commissioned by the Wildlife Trusts. The UK produces almost one million tonnes of pig meat and two million tonnes of poultry meat per year and the Trusts have been examining the broader environmental risks from farming pigs and poultry. We hear look into the details of the report and hear from the pig industry.

Pollinators play an essential part in crop production and we've been looking at them all week. One fruit farm in Herefordshire imports bees from the Netherlands to pollinate fruit in polytunnels. We also speak to the insect charity Buglife.

An update on a tiny community which was considered too remote to be connected to the national grid. People living in the Upper Coquet Valley in Northumberland used to be reliant on generators. For 50 years they've campaigned to be connected to the mains - and now they are!

Presenter = Charlotte Smith

A new report from the Wildlife Trusts outlines the environmental damage caused by pig and poultry pollution. Caz Graham talks to the report authors and to the National Pig Association.

Moths and hoverflies are the unloved pollinators that keep our farms and gardens healthy. We hear about their brilliant undercover work.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Beatrice Fenton

Changes to the costs, paperwork and bureaucracy that are hampering agri-food exports from Great Britain to the European Union won’t be in place until 2027. Nick Thomas–Symonds, the minister for EU relations, has been setting out his priorities for the future of the UK-EU relationship in a speech in front of industry representatives and journalists. We speak to trade expert David Henig and hear how food exporters are 'disappointed' that barriers to trade won't be removed sooner.

As part of our week-long look at pollinators, we visit Bishop’s Bees in Devon, where owner Darren Molyneux is developing genetic lines suited to the UK climate using artificial insemination.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

Three river catchments in the East of Scotland are now in a state of significant scarcity - that’s the most extreme level of water shortage issued by SEPA, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. It says the river Deveron in Aberdeenshire is at its lowest level since the 1970s and that unless there’s significant rainfall, other rivers including the Lower Tweed and the Don could also fall into that highest drought-alert category.

Farmers in Scotland have been harvesting cereals earlier than usual, and agronomists are warning that shifting weather patterns mean growers will need to change their farming practices to help deal with the impacts of climate change.

Butterflies are an important pollinator across farmland, orchards and gardens. However, their numbers have fallen dramatically over the last fifty years. According to the charity, Butterfly Conservation, they’ve dropped by 80% since 1970, due to habitat loss and changes in land management. We take a look at a project in South Wales where grazing cattle are helping to manage bracken and encourage rare High Brown Fritillary butterflies.

Presenter: Caz Graham

A new stakeholder survey has been launched by Natural England and Natural Resources Wales to find out how the Countryside Code is working in England and Wales. The code in Northern Ireland is similar but runs separately, and in Scotland, where they have the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, access, rules are different. We speak to two farmers about whether they feel the code's working for them and what they'd like to see.

Pollinators play an essential part in crop production and we're looking at them all week. One fruit farm in Herefordshire imports bees from the Netherlands to pollinate fruit in polytunnels. We also speak to the insect charity Buglife.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith

The cider apple harvest has started already. Most apples are picked in the autumn and even varieties which ripen early aren’t usually ready yet, and the apple harvest looks likely to buck this year's trend and be good.

The Government's decision last week not to offer a rescue package to two plants producing bioethanol is a cause for worry for farmers. This week the Vivergo bioethanol plant on the Humber near Hull stopped production and started laying off staff. It had been buying around a million tonnes of wheat a year, distilling it into bioethanol which is added to petrol to reduce emissions. It also produced large quantities of cattle feed as a by-product. A separate business, Ensus on Teesside is continuing for now; it produces bioethanol and also carbon dioxide which is used in abattoirs and the food industry. The plants have been rendered economically unviable by the US trade deal, which removed tariffs from bioethanol imports from the States. We hear how the UK has been dependent on American bioethanol for some time now.

Avian flu is on the rise again. In England new rules on game birds are being introduced after warnings of a 'heightened risk' of the virus. The Government says there have been more new cases, particularly in coastal areas and places with a significant number of shoots.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

Avian flu is on the rise again and this summer increase in cases is being linked with seabirds. New stricter biosecurity rules have been introduced for shoots in England after a number of outbreaks in game birds, and there are also more coastal cases of the disease. Bird flu is usually associated with the winter and migratory birds, but seabirds were very badly hit in 2022 and researchers say the H5N1 virus is again affecting them. A consortium of UK scientific organisations form FluMap which is studying bird flu. We speak to Dr Tom Peacock from the Pirbright Institute who says gulls are currently spreading the virus.

It's peak salad season and we visit a producer who uses state-of-the-art technology to grow lettuce under glass using aeroponics. The plant's roots are grown in the air, and the nutrients they need are delivered in a vapour which itself is created using ultrasonics, or sound waves.

The cider apple harvest has started early in some orchards. Most apples are picked in the autumn and even varieties which ripen early aren’t usually ready yet but as we’ve been reporting this year many harvests have been earlier than usual. We find out what this year's apple harvest's looking like.

Farmers are still dealing with the aftermath of Scotland's biggest ever wildfires. In June and July this year more than 29,000 acres of land in the Highlands were affected by fire - with firefighters joined by gamekeepers, farmers and local communities to tackle them. The damage has been described as 'devastating'. We hear from a couple who may have to sell some of their livestock if they can't find alternative grazing soon.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith

New rules on game birds are being introduced in England after warnings of a 'heightened risk' of avian flu. The Government says there have been more new cases, particularly in coastal areas and places with a significant number of shoots. English shoots will now have to introduce stricter biosecurity, for instance cleaning and covering feed and water to protect them from wild bird droppings, which can spread the infection, disinfecting vehicles and keeping records of any visits.

Rules on moving animals in and out of Scotland are being eased, they were introduced to help control bluetongue and stop the disease moving from England into Scotland. Bluetongue is a virus, spread by biting midges which affects sheep, cattle and goats but not humans. The whole of England became a restricted area earlier this year which meant that animals moving into Wales and Scotland faced costly pre-movement tests. Welsh rules have been relaxed and from next month the rules on animals going into Scotland will also change.

Removing peat from commercial veg production is proving problematic. Despite successive Governments intending to ban peat from horticulture, there's currently no date set. Growers are battling to overcome practical issues with peat free compost, particularly where salad crops are concerned. We visit field trials where tomatoes and lettuce are being grown without peat.

Farmer, journalist and broadcaster David Richardson has died at the age of 87. Alongside running his own farm in Norfolk he wrote for newspapers, the farming press, presented on TV and presented, and contributed to Farming Today. He also became the first presenter of our long-running sister programme On Your Farm.

Presenter = Charlotte Smith

County councils say major changes to the way the government calculates funding for local authorities will penalise rural areas. The government says the new system will mean fairer funding and more stability which will help deliver better public services. However the County Councils Network says rural council tax payers will ‘shoulder the burden’ of redistributing hundreds of millions of pounds to urban areas and warn some councils will face deep cuts to their services.

Growing spinach in the soaring heat - a seasonal look at producing salad.

The Vivergo bioethanol plant on the Humber near Hull has now stopped production and started laying off staff after the government said it wouldn’t provide support for the plant. The future of the business had been in doubt since tariffs were removed on bioethanol imports from the US in the recent trade agreement with Donald Trump. The company, owned by Associated British Foods, bought in locally grown wheat, around a million tonnes a year, and distilled it into bioethanol which is added to petrol to reduce emissions, and also produced large quantities of cattle feed. It's one of two plants in the UK. We speak to a renewable energy expert Dr Michael Short from the University of Surrey.

Presenter = Caz Graham