18/09/2026: Lib Dem Party Conference, Glutinous Snails, BBC Awards finalists, The Farmers Wife on stage.

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Party conference season is underway and so we'll be catching up with the rural and farming policies of the main parties around the UK over the next few weeks. The Liberal Democrats open their meeting in Brighton tomorrow. They're renewing their call for the government to protect food security by funding more on-farm reservoirs, so farmers can cope with increasingly frequent drought and deluge. The Lib Dem's Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs spokesperson, Tim Farron, tells us how the party would go about increasing DEFRA's budget. Conservationists are working to save a tiny snail which has been driven to extinction across most of the UK and can now only be found in Wales' largest natural lake. Several British zoos are setting up populations of the Glutinous Snail, one of Europe's rarest species, using creatures bred in a back garden in Ceredigion. Ecologist Ian Hughes has made it his "life-defining" mission to protect the threatened mollusc, which was once widespread in UK waters. Today the finalists for the BBC Food & Farming Awards are announced. Charlotte Smith reveals the finalists for The Archers and Farming Today 'Farming for the Future Award'. A new play inspired by the best-selling memoir The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks will have its world premiere tonight in Cumbria. It follows a single day in the life of three generations of women on a working family farm. We take a peek behind the scenes. Presenter: Charlotte Smith Producer: Sarah Swadling