19/06/24 - Re-doing the Green Revolution, the Landworkers' Alliance manifesto and horticulture training

Farming Today

Could the plant breeding achievements of the Green Revolution be started again from scratch? That's the hope of scientists at the John Innes Centre, who say modern commercial varieties of wheat used by farmers could be replaced with better ones, using wheat lines collected a century ago. Back in the 1920s, an enterprising plant scientist named Arthur Earnest Watkins sent out letters to other Brits around the world, asking them to collect locally grown wheat, hoping the traits in those local cultivars would come in useful in the future. That original Watkins Collection is now based at the John Innes Centre in Norwich - but a massive 60 percent of the genetic diversity held within it, has never been looked at.

The Landworkers' Alliance is one of the smaller groups. It speaks for regenerative and sustainable agriculture, but with an emphasis on local production, and getting more people involved in growing food. We hear what they want from the next Government.

And we visit a new "Centre of Excellence" in glasshouse growing at Hadlow College. It's been set up with Thanet Earth - the biggest greenhouse complex in the UK, growing salad veg.

Presented by Anna Hill Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons