Farming Today

The coronavirus crisis has brought a double-whammy for growers in the horticulture sector. Travel restrictions mean it's harder for their usual workforce to come to the UK for the picking season, and at the same time keeping pickers two metres apart is not easy. Anna Hill finds out about new measures being introduced on some farms, to keep staff safe. A goat farmer in Northern Ireland sends us his audio diary of life under lockdown on the farm. Continuing a week-long look at trees, we hear about careers in arboriculture. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Emma Campbell.

The National Farmers Union is having urgent talks with the DEFRA Secretary later today to discuss a nationwide scheme to recruit UK agricultural workers. We hear from an asparagus farmer who's struggling to find people to pick his crop, and from NFU Vice President, Tom Bradshaw. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

Charlotte Smith speaks to Darren Moorcroft from The Woodland Trust about the impact the coronavirus is having on their work and on the people who still want to visit their woods. Caroline Millar gives an update on the tourism business she runs on a farm in Angus, and Jonathan Park reports on the shutdown of Newmarket's horse racing industry. Presenter: Charlotte Smith Producer: Toby Field

Supermarket shelves are being stripped bare and veg box producers are seeing order numbers shoot through the roof. Meanwhile, some farmers and food producers who until recently supplied restaurants and pubs, are finding themselves with surplus stock. Charlotte Smith asks whether our famously complicated food supply chain can shift in time, to feed people, and avoid massive waste. And what will the long term impact be on the way we deliver food from farm to fork? We answer your farming questions on everything from auction marts to TB testing. Our Farming Today Audio Diarists give us updates from across the UK - from an rural tourism business in Scotland, to a goat farm in Northern Ireland. What's happening with farmers' markets? Some are closed, some are going ahead...and the police are getting involved. And, is this a silver lining? With fewer cars on the roads and aeroplanes in the skies, many of us are hearing the birds loud and clear for the first time in years. We find out what you should be listening for. Presented by Charlotte Smith Produced by Heather Simons

One of the country's biggest farmers markets has decided to shut, for the first time in its 20 year history. Hundreds of people flock to Stroud in Gloucestershire every week to get fresh local meat, veg and other farm produce. Traders persevered with the market last week, but tomorrow customers will have to collect their shopping instead. Other farmers markets, like Kendal in Cumbria are staying open, but they're having to find different ways of doing business to comply with Covid19 distancing rules. As the coronavirus lockdown continues to affect all our lives, we're asking people in rural communities around the UK to give us an idea of how they're bearing up. The latest in our series of Farming Today diaries comes from farmer George Bennett in Thame in Oxfordshire. The number of deer in the UK is growing: more farmers are keeping them for venison and wild deer populations are increasing. Despite this, very little is known about disease in the deer population. In recent years outbreaks of E. coli in people (causing gastroenteritis) have been linked to venison products. Sam Pearce from the University of Bristol has started investigating disease in the deer population to identify the potential role deer may play in the transmission of enteric disease.