27/04/22 - NI whistleblower, anti-fungal resistance and preventing water pollution

A former government vet at the centre of a whistleblowing scandal in Northern Ireland, has been awarded £1.25 million and an unreserved apology from the Department of Agriculture and Environment. Dr Tamara Bronckaers resigned after concerns she had raised about animal welfare and traceability weren't acted on. An industrial tribunal found she had been constructively dismissed.

Scientists have traced a connection between agricultural use of an anti-fungal spray with drug-resistant lung infections in humans. They found that some moulds in the environment have evolved drug-resistance because of the anti-fungal treatments used in timber production and farming and have gone on to infect human patients with low immunity, whose treatment could be compromised by that resistance.

And water companies that provide domestic drinking supplies spend millions of pounds a year cleaning up the water they abstract - so it can pay off for them to help farmers ensure less pollution reaches the river in the first place. We visit one farmer who has been trialling a variety of methods of growing maize as part of an initiative funded by South East Water.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Heather Simons.