21/09/24 Farming Today This Week: Radical change to food safety proposed, flood repairs outstanding, trail hunting, blackberries

Farming Today

Radical changes to food safety are being proposed. The Food Standards Agency is discussing removing responsibility from cash strapped councils and relying instead on data collected by food companies and supermarkets. Chris Elliott, professor of food safety at Queen’s University Belfast and Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, says more work and more consultation is needed.

As the Met Office predicts another autumn and winter of destructive floods, a number of flood defences in England damaged during last winter's storms are still yet to be fixed. And the National Farmers' Union has warned that many farms still in dire need of flood support.

It's been 20 years since fox hunting was banned by Tony Blair’s government. Since then trail or drag hunting are two different ways of hunting without doing anything illegal. In drag hunting the hounds follow a non-animal scent laid by a drag pulled on a string, in trail hunting they follow an animal scent. Critics say trail hunting can be used as a smokescreen for illegal hunting and in its election manifesto Labour said it would ban trail hunting.

Picking blackberries from the hedgerows, along with the wild damson and sloes, is one of those end of summer outings, marking the seasonal shift. September is also the biggest month for selling commercially grown blackberries. Growers say new varieties mean they're bigger and better and while sales are up about 6% year on year, they're nowhere near as popular here in the UK as raspberries. Is it worth buying blackberries, at £2 or more a punnet, when you can pick them for free?

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.