Willow, Pigs and the Future of Farming

Scotland Outdoors

BBC

Nature, Society & Culture, Science

4.7 • 709 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2023

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mark visits Deeside Willow to hear all about how to grow this versatile plant and its many uses. He also tries his hand at some willow sculpting.

The Future Forest Company has transformed a former sheep farm in Ayrshire with the help of some rather interesting pigs. Rachel went to visit the Brodoclea site to hear about the organisation’s aims and what role their Mangalica pigs have played.

Dr Kat Jones is director of the charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland. For the last few months she’s been walking the Glasgow Greenbelt to raise awareness of these often forgotten areas. Mark joined her for a wander along part of the greenbelt near Airdrie.

Phil is in Cromarty to see the impact Storm Babet has had on a popular coastal path in the village. He hears how the community council plan to repair and future proof the route.

Helen Needham meets Professor Roger Crofts at a climate conference at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. They chat about the much anticipated Agriculture and Rural Communities Bill which is being considered by the Scottish Parliament just now

Joining Mark and Dr Kat Jones on their greenbelt walk was Ann Glen who tells Mark a bit about the history of the Monkland Canal and the importance of looking after these areas.

And Rachel is in North Berwick where she hears the tragic story of a young artist, Catherine Watson who drowned after rescuing three children from the sea. Her story was almost forgotten until some of her artwork popped up in an unusual place.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?
0:06.6	Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher, Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave,
0:12.7	and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked.
0:15.7	Good things come to those who don't wait.
0:18.7	Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.
0:22.8	This Scotland Outdoors podcast with Mark Stephen and Rachel Stewart from BBC Radio
0:28.4	Scotland.
0:33.1	Hello and thanks very much for choosing to listen to this.
0:35.6	As you know, we build the Scotland Outdoors podcast from the live programme we do for BBC Radio Scotland,
0:40.4	which is called Out of Doors.
0:42.5	And this week, Mark, gets all crafty with some willow
0:45.9	and manages to create a very impressive, or so he thinks, stag.
0:53.3	You know, we'd like to start off with a wee sort of, like, sort of, what the weather's doing in the BBC Aberdeen Car Park this morning? It's nice. It's actually quite mild. Little patch of, it's a cloud and, you know, the moon shining up through there and I can see Venus through the trees. But this week comes across on the West Coast and the colours. The colours on the trees are just breathtaking.
1:13.6	There's one little red tree outside Benderloch and I swear it's just, you know,
1:19.6	if you ever doubted the existence of a creator, that tree will convince you one way or another.
1:24.6	I'm Mark Stephen right beside me here in Beachgrove in Aberdeen, Rachel Stewart.
1:28.8	Good morning.
1:29.7	Now, it's not that I'm not delighted to be here.
1:32.0	I am, obviously, but it does feel a bit brutal to be sitting here when last week I was on holiday
1:37.5	and not to show off, but I was in warm and sunny conditions in Ibiza.
1:42.5	Clubbing it.
1:43.3	Well, no, obviously no.
	...

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