A Farm for the Future - BBC 2 - 20th February 2009

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is.

Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

The programme airs at 20.00hrs 20th Feb 2009 (except Wales 17.00hrs 22nd Feb 2009)

Picture (c) BBC 2007

Rebecca Hosking

Rebecca Hosking is one of only three female wildlife filmmakers in Britain. In 2006, while filming on a beach on a remote Hawaiian atoll, she came across hundreds of dying albatross chicks – they had all swallowed bits of plastic. She also saw dying humpback whales, seals and turtles – and remembered the plastic bags floating in the sea in Devon where she swam as a child. When she returned to her native Modbury, she started a campaign to ban the bag. Before long she’d persuaded all 43 shopkeepers to replace their plastic bags with reusable ones, prompting the head of Greenpeace UK to declare: ‘She should be prime minister’.