Episode
06/06/26 - Farming Today This Week: Dartmoor ponies, water voles and land-based jobs
- Podcast
- Farming Today
- Published
- Jun 6, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1496
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002xd56
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Summary
Dartmoor is famous for its semi-wild hill ponies that roam across the moorland. But concerns have been raised by the Dartmoor Hill Pony Association that new agri-environment schemes will require such a steep drop in the numbers of grazing livestock in the area that up to 93 percent of the ponies will be lost. We hear from the association's Secretary, Joss Hibbs. Next year will be the last that farmers in England receive direct subsidy payments, based on how much land they farm. Direct payments have been particularly important for upland farmers in areas like the Lake District, where they are now being replaced by environmental schemes. Caz Graham speaks to two generations of a Lake District farming family about the continued viability of upland farming. The Government has published fresh guidance this week for farmers and food businesses to help them prepare for the new sanitary and phytosanitary - or SPS - agreement between the UK and the European Union, which is expected to be brought in in around a year's time. The Government says the SPS agreement will make it easier for British farmers to sell into the EU, but it could also mean a change in the agro-chemicals farmers can legally use on their crops, and if the rules change suddenly, there are concerns farmers could be left with crops grown under the old rules, which they could no longer sell under the new rules. UK peatlands - an important habitat for wildlife and a major carbon sink - are facing pressure from development, intensive land use and a changing climate, with around 80% believed to be degraded. In Wales however, the National Peatland Action Programme has completed over three and half thousand hectares of restoration work since 2020. In the Cambrian Mountains the project has been so successful that water…