Is TV’s Countryfile ‘fluffy’ or hard-hitting?

THE idea that Countryfile does not engage ‘properly with the issues facing Britain’s farmers’ and simply focuses on the ‘fluffy’ side of country life is nonsense. A more accurate criticism of BBC coverage of farming issues would be that the Corporation increasingly toes the Government line on controversial issues such as GM crops and pesticides, and is out of touch with public opinion. Recently, Countryfile carried an in-depth investigation into the problem of blackgrass, a persistent weed increasingly resistant to chemical weedkillers — hardly ‘fluffy’ or a preoccupation of ‘townies’. Interestingly, the report concluded the only way of combating this serious threat to arable farmers is to revert to ploughing, mixed rotations of crops and planting crops in the spring. This was not Countryfile’s view, but that of a scientist working on developing GM crops.

PETER MELCHETT, Bristol. THE BBC’s Countryfile seems to have been replaced with Countryfile Bake-off. Hardly an edition goes by without presenters sampling a local food speciality. Cue presenter donning a hygienic head covering, smock or overalls, to be instructed in the art of pasty-crimping, sausage skin-filling or shortcake-making, at the end of which they get to take away the misshapen excuse for being there to share with a fellow presenter. Or they turn up to ‘give a hand’ to a worthwhile project. Cue presenter picking up a scythe and taking a couple of swings at some reed beds, digging two shovelfuls of earth and planting something, or heaving a couple of rocks into a dry stone wall and standing back in self-admiration of a job well done. This programme has lost its way.

ALAN ASHTON, St Austell, Cornwall.