PRIZEWINNING sausages might well be the luxury item of choice on this weekend’s Desert Island Discs when Bishopstone farmer Helen Browning is cast away on the popular Sunday morning show.

Her choice of eight pieces music for the show – hosted by Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4 – remains strictly under wraps until it is broadcast.

More used to providing a treat for the tastebuds, the organic farmer – whose produce is prized by supermarkets including Sainsbury’s and Ocado – hopes to serve up a feast for the ears this weekend.

“Choosing eight pieces of music has really tested my mind,” she said. “There are so many that mean different things at different times of my life. It has been cathartic.”

Helen, the daughter of a tenant farmer, took on the Eastbrook Farm in Bishopstone, on the Oxfordshire-Wiltshire border – and an industry dominated by men – in 1986.

As one of the first farmers to champion organics, she was awarded an OBE for services to organic farming in 1998.

Her organic meat range reflects the provenance and heritage associated with her farming methods. She is also the chief executive of The Soil Association.

Tim Finney, managing director at Helen Browning’s Organic who has worked alongside her for 21 years, said the invitation to appear on Desert Island Discs was a testament to her achievements over the years. He said: “It is a reflection of her talent, her amazing capacity for hard work and her enviable ability to run her own ‘big tent’.

"She gets people from all sectors of food, farming, agriculture and food politics, nutrition, health and science to talk and listen to each other.”

Helen is also widely recognised for the pioneering work on her own farm, where the goal is always to improve the way livestock are looked after and the way the farm is run for the benefit of animals, food quality, wildlife, staff and future generations.

In 2014 Her hot dogs won the best innovative sausage in British Sausage Week Awards 2014 and gold in The Soil Association Food Awards 2013.

Her sirloin beef has also been praised, winning gold in The Soil Association Organic Food Awards 2013.

Her pub The Royal Oak, which is in the middle of the working farm, has been awarded a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide 2013.

It has also been listed in the Good Food Guide for five consecutive years.

Desert Island Discs is a British institution that has welcomed hundreds of the famous and the obscure to talk about their lives accompanied by their favourite musical pieces since 1942.

To listen to Helen Browning discussing her life with Kirsty Young and to find out which pieces of music she has selected, tune in to Desert Island Discs on Sunday on Radio 4 at 11.15am.