One of the original ideas of the Archers was to provide information on modern agricultural techniques to farmers with food security etc. etc in mind.. It's been going since 1950, and I've never met a farmer that listens to it though sometimes I've been too embarrassed to ask. The programme still has an agricultural story editor, and still drops in quite heavy-handed information about farming techniques. But it's remit is much wider and it covers a host of social issues, often cited as an inspiration for some of the uses of broadcast media in community development.
So given that the programme is very likely one of the key sources of information about the rural world for a large number of people who don't live there - why not have a rural story editor? Rural rather than or alongside agricultural expertise is well established in both academia and policy, and it's different. Why worry so much about the technical information that gets dropped in the programme relating to agriculture, when it's the rural stories that matter most to society?
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