~theguardian-world | Bookmarks (4)

Annual watchlist raises concern for native chicken, duck, geese and turkey populations as well as rare pig breedsAll of the UK’s native breeds of chicken, duck, geese and turkey are under threat because of bird flu, a report from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) has found.The disease, which has swept the globe after it originated in poultry farms in Asia, has caused devastating...

Schemes to replace EU subsidies will not plug gap left by loss of EU subsidies for most farmersFarmers are calling for the government to grant them a universal basic income, saying the post-Brexit agriculture subsidy scheme has left many poorer.Delays to the sustainable farming schemes put in place after the UK left the European Union, to replace the common agricultural policy (CAP), have meant...

Exclusive: Rothamsted Research is having to pause ‘non-essential’ work, according to a letter from its directorThe UK’s leading agricultural research facility is facing a funding crisis with its future work in jeopardy, it can be revealed.Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, having been founded in 1843, and its research has been credited with preventing...

The infamous A30 summer holiday bottleneck will go when eight miles of dual carriageway opens in March. But for some, the cost is too highAs cars and lorries snail interminably along the A30 in Cornwall – the county’s notorious trunk road – the words of the furious driver in John Betjeman’s poem, Meditation On The A30, seem befitting: “I can’t go on crawling like...