大象传媒

Sybil Ruscoe looks into a vital aspect of farming - the production of animal feed, from silage to compound feeds and supplements. The UK animal feed industry is worth nearly four and a half billion pounds to the economy, with businesses producing about 11 million tonnes of animal feed every year.

Sybil visits Henry Cole Feeds near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, a firm run by Alan Christie that works closely with local arable farmer Neville Crook who grows the wheat, beans and peas that go into their animal feed products.

In the programme, Caz Graham visits County Durham to report on the county's annual silage competition, revealing that there's more to 'pickling' grass than meets the eye. Also, we hear a call from a vet who argues that the EU should reconsider its ban on the use of pig swill (human food waste), following the outbreak of foot and mouth in the UK in 2001, which was traced back to the use of raw swill on an English farm.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Mark Smalley.