Mud Sweat and Tractors: The Story of Agriculture - Season 1

First aired: 4/15/2009 4 episodes

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Episodes

1. Milk

Aired: 4/15/2009

In the early years of the century, 150,000 dairy farmers milked by hand and sold milk door to door. By the end of the century, the 15,000 that were left were breeding cows that increased yields by 400 per cent and milk was sold through supermarkets. This episode features the home movies and stories of two dairy farmers who survived to tell the story of how and why the revolution happened.

2. Fruit and Veg

Aired: 4/22/2009

A look at the changes in the way fruit and veg was grown, picked and sold, told through three of the staples in the British landscape - apples, strawberries and tomatoes. Home movies and archive footage reveal the extent of the revolution in how the fruit was picked and the impact supermarkets had on the fortunes of the small- and medium-sized growers.

3. Wheat

Aired: 4/29/2009

Documentary series about the history of 20th-century farming in Britain looks at wheat and tells how the country became self-sufficient in producing bread-making wheat after the Second World War. Told through the working lives and home movie archives of three wheat-farming families from the east of England, it reveals how farmers went from horse power to machine power and how they used science and genetics to transform the size and yield of wheat and the rural landscape, with controversial outcomes for the countryside.

4. Beef

Aired: 5/6/2009

A look at how two of our finest native breeds of cattle, Hereford and Aberdeen Angus, reigned supreme before the Second World War and helped earn Britain a reputation as the 'stockyard of the world'. The programme also shows how, since then, both breeds have been transformed to a much larger size - from standing only to the stockman's waist to reaching his shoulder.