United Kingdom-Mud,sweat and tractors.

UNITED KINGDOM-FARMING SHOW AIRS FOR LAST TIME.

Mud, Sweat and Tractors

BBC Four, 9pm

The final episode in the series — on the developments in beef production over the past 80 years — is also the weakest, because neither cows nor stockmen are natural television performers. Although changes in cattle farming did take place during that period, they were less pronounced than in other areas of farming; after all, animal husbandry has been going on for thousands of years. Before the Second World War, pedigree cattle reached up to a stockman’s waist. Two generations later, they were up to his shoulder, having been crossed with bigger continental breeds and beefed up with barley and silage. The outbreak of BSE led to a public reaction against unnatural farming methods, and now the old-fashioned ways are being re-learnt to produce less meat of higher quality. It has been an outstanding series, but not an altogether reassuring one.