Jimmy Doherty's Farming Heroes

Having given up life in the city to start his own farm, Jimmy Doherty wants to see what other farmers have achieved. With a looming food crisis across the globe, what happens to farming will affect us all and so Jimmy travels the country to meet the people shaping the future of British farming. He starts his journey in the east of England, where farming is about big machines and large-scale production, and finds he has to test his own doubts about whether big does indeed mean bad.

Jimmy visits Wales where farmers have turned farming on its head. They use daffodils to tackle Alzheimer's, garlic to combat the deadly side effects of cows and Kiwi science to create super sheep.

Jimmy's in the north of England, where farmers are fighting back after some tough years. To see how they've done that, he joins in on a hillside sheep round-up, harvests rhubarb by candlelight, and hacks his way through a willow forest destined to produce electricity. Finally, he pits his own rare-breed pork in a public taste-test against meat from a pig claimed to be the most modern in the world.

Jimmy discovers the secret of making chemical free bacon, the art of ploughing, why the UK is still in the grip of the disease that caused the original Irish potato famine, and investigates how stress-free animals make better meat.

Jimmy visits the Highlands of Scotland where scenery is spectacular, but the farming is tough. Scottish farmers are pioneering new ways to make the best from poor quality soil, and protect the often fragile beauty of the landscape they work in. Jimmy discovers how forests are expanding, fish farms are cleaning up their act, and reindeer are making a comeback in Scotland. And why there's a fortune to be made from Scottish bogs.

In the final part of his journey, Jimmy heads to the West of England. It is picture-book rural Britain, but also a region full of small farmers with big ideas about how food production needs to change. Jimmy meets the mavericks who are finding ways to make organics cheaper, keep food local and bring a dead cow back to life. And he enters the hidden world of Britain's only underground farm.