The development of agriculture some 12,000 years ago changed the way humans live.
As technologies have developed we’ve become more and more efficient at producing large amounts of food and feeding an ever growing population, often with the help of synthetically produced nitrogen fertiliser.
These fertilisers can damage ecosystems. They also produce a pot ... Show More
Oct 6
What do ice cores tells us about climate change?
What can ice cores tell us about the atmosphere millions of years ago? These cylinders of ice, drilled from glaciers and ice sheets around the world, preserve precious clues about our changing climate and records such as rainfall, temperature and greenhouse gases, even volcanic e ... Show More
26m 29s
Sep 28
Why don’t we use more geothermal energy?
Geothermal energy is renewable, reliable and powerful. So, why is most of it untapped? That’s what our listener, Anna in the UK, wants to know. Full disclosure, she’s a geologist and is thoroughly perplexed by the lack of uptake. Geothermal is renewable, reliable and abundant and ... Show More
26m 28s
Sep 21
How does extreme heat affect pregnancy?
Graihagh Jackson and the BBC’s former Global Health Correspondent Tulip Mazumdar investigate how extreme heat, fuelled by climate change, is affecting pregnant women in India. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Tulip hears the heart-breaking stories of some of the women affecte ... Show More
26m 28s
May 2021
Could we turn poisonous plants into edible crops?
There are over 400,000 species of plant on earth, they’re on every continent including Antarctica. But humans only regularly eat about 200 species globally, with the vast majority of our nutrition coming from just three species. Many of the fruits, leaves and tubers that other pl ... Show More
27m 59s
Aug 2021
Methane - a climate solution?
The latest IPCC assessment raised alarm about the rate at which manmade emissions are contributing to climate change. Much of the focus for action is on reducing levels of carbon dioxide, however there is a more potent greenhouse gas, methane, produced by natural and industrial p ... Show More
1h 7m
Aug 2016
Organic Food
People are going bonkers for organic, but what are you really getting when you buy them? Better taste? Fewer toxic chemicals? A cleaner environment? Farmers Mark, Andy, and Brian Reeves, nutritional epidemiologist Dr. Kathryn Bradbury, Ass. Prof. Cynthia Curl, and Prof. Navin Ram ... Show More
38m 5s
Jun 2022
09/06/22 - Fertiliser costs, land use, the finances of nature recovery
Fertiliser prices have tripled in the last year and many arable farmers rely on them to produce cereal crops. We hear from farmers at 'Cereals 2022', the arable event of the year, where some significant news about the future of fertiliser manufacturing was breaking: CF Fertiliser ... Show More
13m 34s
May 2021
What's the appetite for gene edited food?
Gene editing could revolutionise agriculture, with some scientists promising healthier and more productive crops and animals, but will consumers want to eat them? With the first gene edited crops recently approved for sale, Emily Thomas hears why this technology might be quicker, ... Show More
36m 7s