The Farming Programme

It's New Year - New Ideas through January on the Farming Programme. Sean meets "Tom, Dick and Harry" - three robots who could be our farmers of the future!

This week, it's the annual Farming Programme Pantomime...Jack, The Greatest Farming Showman - starring all the regular contributors to the programme.

Note: Due to licencing reasons, the music has been removed from this online version.

We’re discussing real Christmas Trees – and asking whether this year’s summer drought might affect your tree in years to come. Plus, there’s a final update of the year from British Sugar on the beet campaign.

Sean’s looking at ‘cover crops’ to see if that’s the answer to creating healthier soils over the winter. Plus, he looks at the success of so-called Monitor Farms...enabling farmers to learn from others in the industry.

After Sir David Attenborough’s speech on climate change, we’ll hear the views of a prominent member of the Green Party, who is himself a farmer.

With less than a month to go until Christmas, Sean meets the farmer who’s growing a hundred and sixty five million sprouts ready for the big day.

Sean reports from the NFU’s Brexit Summit….and asks are we any clearer to finding out what will happen to agriculture after March next year? Plus, we meet a man who left the UK to help create a giant farm in the desert in Eqypt.

Is enough being done to attract the next generation in to farming? It’s one of the questions being asked on this week’s Farming Programme,

There are harsh words for farmers on the programme this week, as they’re told they’re not doing enough to engage with those not in the industry.

Plus, as it’s Armistice Day, Sean is bringing together some of the country’s biggest names in agriculture to pay a very special tribute, on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One

It’s a very different Farming Programme this week as Sean focuses on the issue of mental health. We’ll hear from the organisations offering help, plus hear from one of the programmes regular contributors who’ll explain how a friends suicide lead him to successfully campaign to get mental health on the curriculum in agricultural colleges.