Around 38 million acres of Ukrainian farmland has now been rendered too dangerous to farm by Russian mines. According to the charity the "Mines Advisory Group", there have been more than a thousand mine accidents in Ukraine since 2022 - with farmers making up one of the largest single groups of casualties. We hear from the man in charge of clearing land mines there. Farmers can be paid to integrate tree-planting into their farm management plans through Government schemes like Countryside Stewardship. We visit two farmers in the Lake District who are being advised by The Woodland Trust on ..read more

Today trees: from Welsh Government plans to get them planted on farms, to the ever missed English planting targets and the recent cuts to the budget for planting in Scotland, trees are the subject of much debate in rural areas. Despite our fondness for them and need for timber, we still don't like commercial forestry. Foresters warn the public's perception is hampering efforts to grow more timber. We get an overview of the state of British woodlands. The Scottish Government wildlife agency NatureScot has been holding advice sessions on wild boar and providing help for farmers and crofters deal ..read more

Wales' new Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs says his first job it to listen to farmers. It comes after unrest and large protests in Wales by farmers, angry about the Welsh Government's approach to farming. In particular, the way its tacking TB in cattle, stricter rules on pollution and the Sustainable Farming Scheme, which will replace EU subsides in Wales and requires farmers to plant trees on 10% of their land. We put their concerns to Huw Irranca-Davies. The UK Government has admitted that it unlawfully issued some licences for releasing game birds last year. The campa ..read more

The Government has admitted that it unlawfully issued some licences for releasing game birds last year. The campaign group Wild Justice challenged the licences granted in the Deben Estuary in Suffolk and Breckland in Norfolk, saying that ministers had ignored the advice from the wildlife regulator Natural England, and that a proper assessment of the impact hadn't been carried out. By law under the Habitats Directive there must be an assessment of the impact of any release near Special Protected Areas, and advice from Natural England must be taken into account for a licence to be granted. While ..read more

A total wipe-out of crops is now a possibility for some farms - it follows the record rainfall over recent months. Crops on thousands of acres of highly productive land have been destroyed and even now fields are too boggy for machinery to harvest or plant crops for the months ahead. So what impact will this have on our fresh produce supply chains? Tenant farmers "can't be left to go by the wayside" - that's the message from the NFU Tenant Farmer Conference. English farmers who rent some - or all - of the land they work face many challenges at the moment. From landlords taking land back for so ..read more

After farmers held protest against post-Brexit agricultural policy in Wales, is the new Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs ready for the challenge? In his first interview for the programme, Anna Hill asks him about the 10% tree policy, how they plan to tackle bovine TB and whether they're doing enough to clean up Welsh rivers. The Government has published its long awaited River Wye Action Plan, which includes the doubling of grants for farm slurry stores and up to £35 million worth of funding for poultry manure combustors. Campaigners say the river is in an ‘ecologica ..read more

Changes to farm support payments after Brexit, increasingly unpredictable weather, not to mention a cost of living crisis means farmers are relying more on additional income streams to boost their farm profits. We’re going to be looking into farm diversifications all this week, and while you might think the most common sources of extra income would be accommodation for tourists and things like farm shops, in fact letting out buildings for businesses and producing solar energy were the top two diversifications in 2022 - 23, according to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs. It ..read more

Changes have been made to the UK Government's Farming Recovery Fund after the NFU reported "major issues" with the scheme. The Fund was announced back in January, to provide up to £25,000 to farmers affected by Storm Henck to go towards repairs to their land. Four months later, this week the Government opened that fund to applications...and almost immediately some farmers reported problems... We are still in the midst of the worst Avian Flu outbreak we have ever seen - the highly infectious strain of the virus has reached every continent except Australia. Now, dairy cows on several farms in th ..read more

A new report has put a price on how much the changing climate is affecting farmers. Commissioned by WWF Cymru, looking specifically at Wales, it estimates that extreme weather events are already costing farms tens of millions of pounds a year. Can hill farming and conservation work together? Since taking over the tenancy of a Lake District farm in 2011, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has drastically reduced the number of sheep grazing on the hills, focusing instead on nature and land restoration. It's been a controversial move, attracting some fierce criticism. Labelling on pork ..read more

The UK Government's Farming Recovery Fund had opened to help farmers badly hit by Storm Henck back in January to pay for repairs to their land. The fund provides those who are eligible with up to £25,000 but some flood-hit farmers say they won't get as much as they'd hoped, because the pay outs only apply to fields within 150m of specific rivers. There are many different ways of rearing pigs. Piglets can either be born indoors or outdoors, then once they're weaned most are reared inside. There, they can either be housed in barns with a slatted floor, which allows the muck to drain through, or ..read more