# Farming Today This Week: New drought package for farmers, bluetongue, brassica crisis, hot salads, B12 peashoots, cherries.

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/farming-today-385282/farming-today-this-week-new-drought-package-for-farmers-bluetongue-brassica-crisis-hot-salads-b12-peashoots-cherries
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/farming-today-385282/farming-today-this-week-new-drought-package-for-farmers-bluetongue-brassica-crisis-hot-salads-b12-peashoots-cherries.md
Podcast: [Farming Today](https://stenobird.com/podcast/farming-today-385282)
Published: 2026-08-15T06:00:00+00:00
Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0030c4v
Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss/proto/http/vpid/p0p4lfdz.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/farming-today-385282/episodes/farming-today-this-week-new-drought-package-for-farmers-bluetongue-brassica-crisis-hot-salads-b12-peashoots-cherries
Duration seconds: 1487

## Resource

The Prime Minister's due to announce a package of support to help farmers in England cope with the drought. The measures will include putting an extra £50 million of Defra's budget towards this year's Sustainable Farming Incentive and offering up to £15 million for on-farm reservoirs, to enable farmers to store water in the winter which they can use in the summer. As well as drought and heat, livestock farmers are staving off an outbreak of bluetongue - it’s a disease which affects cattle and sheep, but not humans. The South West is dealing with hundreds of cases, mostly in sheep in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. However there’ve been cases in Northern England and Wales as well, and for the first time ever, a couple of cases in Scotland. Brassica growers say the sector's in crisis. Farmers say crops like brocolli and cauliflower are dying in the fields because of the drought and extreme heat. The hot weather means demand for salad is up but when it's too hot, the crops don't like it - and nor do the pickers. We visit a grower in Lancashire where workers are picking by torch-light to avoid the heat. Vitamin B12 is essential for our diets, it's found in meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, but not in plants, or not until now, that is: scientists have developed a way of fortifying peashoots with B12 and hope to get them in supermarket salad bags in the next year or two. This summer marks the end of an era for the Thompson family and their berry farm at Blairgowrie, in Perthshire, one of Scotland's most important soft fruit growing areas. The Thompsons have decided to end commercial production because they say the business is no longer economically viable. Presenter = Caz Graham Producer = Rebecca Rooney

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