It is a common complaint in the produce aisle: tomatoes today might be big, but they are tasteless. Now researchers say they can remedy the problem by tweaking genes that affect sugar levels in the fruit.

While their wild relatives produce small, sweet fruit, domesticated tomatoes grown industrially have been bred for high yields, resulting in varieties that are 10-100 times bigger.

Now scientists in China say they have identified two genes that put a brake on sugar production in tomatoes during ripening, and created gene-edited versions of domesticated varieties to result in fruit that is large but also sweet.

The viable UK rapeseed area for 2024-25 is forecast to be the smallest in the past four decades, with industry estimates pegging it at 215,000ha ahead of next year’s harvest.

Farmers’ co-operative United Oilseeds suggests this would leave the UK with a domestic crop of about 663,850t in 2025 – well below even the hard-hit 2024 crop of 833,900t.

Despite firmer prices this autumn, cabbage stem flea beetle pressure on plantings in previous years and dwindling yields have left some farm businesses wary of growing the crop.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has invested millions of pounds into a pioneering project aimed at developing a vaccine that would reduce methane emissions from cattle.

Researchers at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey and the Royal Veterinary College are working with an international consortium to build scientific evidence for a vaccine that can reduce the number and activity of methane-producing microbes, or methanogens, in a cow’s gut.

The project, which is being backed by a $9.4m (£7.3m) grant from the Bezos Earth Fund, is exploring the potential of a vaccine to reduce these emissions by 30%.

A fundamental shift in how land-use subsidies are implemented would give taxpayers better value for money and improve the UK’s chances of meeting its environmental targets.

The government’s commitment to the biggest expansion in woodland for half a century to reach Net Zero by 2050 requires them to pay landowners to convert agricultural land into woodland.

These payments are allocated using flat-rate subsidies, which provide a consistent per-hectare payment to landowners regardless of the suitability of the land for tree-planting. Researchers from the University of Exeter Business School have demonstrated that these flat-rate subsidies are not only ineffective but could actually increase net greenhouse gas emissions.

Farmers are being urged to have their say on how agriculture should be represented in the national curriculum, to ensure schoolchildren and students gain a better understanding of the sector and the opportunities available.

The call, co-ordinated by the Industry Careers Action Plan (Icap) group, follows the government’s launch of a comprehensive review of the national curriculum in July, providing an opportunity for stakeholders to shape the content of the updated curriculum.

Icap, which includes representatives from AHDB, the Chartered Institute of Horticulture, Country Trust, the Fresh Produce Consortium, Lantra, Leaf, the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC), and The Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (Tiah), has sent an open letter to farmers and growers. The group feel the current curriculum misrepresents the sector, creating misconceptions about its role in food security, sustainability, climate change, and career opportunities.

In what could be a boon for local tomato production around the world, trait development company Phytoform just unveiled a mini version of the popular Ailsa Craig tomato variety that’s one-sixth the size of a conventional tomato plant and produces fivefold the amount of fruit.

The UK-based startup utilises gene editing to get this result, accelerating changes that might naturally occur through traditional breeding methods. Phytoform has also made this tomato “tailored to the needs of vertical farms.”

“We hope our tomatoes are going to be a reset for vertical farming,” says Phytoform founder and CEO Dr. William Pelton. “It’s a small crop that can transform business models from thin margins to decent profits. The growers we’re working with are as excited as we are.”

Ministers are preparing to introduce legislation that will permit the growing of gene-edited crops in England. But the new legislation will not cover the use of this technology to create farm animals that have increased resistance to disease or lower carbon footprints.

The decision has dismayed some senior scientists, who had expected both uses of gene editing would be given the go-ahead. They fear the decision could hold back the creation of hardier, healthier herds and flocks. Animal welfare groups have welcomed the move, however.

The potential benefits of developing an 'ecosystem' which farmers could trust to connect farm-level environmental data has been highlighted in a new report published by AHDB today (1 November).

Environmental data is becoming increasingly important to businesses, supply chains and governments due to regulatory and voluntary reporting requirements.

This in turn means there will be a growing demand for farmers to supply data to different organisations in order to demonstrate what is happening to the environment on their farm.

The devastating flash flooding in Spain has again highlighted the vital need for domestic food resilience in the face of climate change, warn farm leaders.

Torrential rain and hurricane-force winds in Valencia have caused massive damage to both infrastructure, and regional cropping and livestock sectors, after a year’s worth of rain fell in just eight hours on Tuesday 29 October.

Spain provides about 32% of the UK’s fruit and veg imports, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuces, broccoli and citrus fruit. Most of this produce is grown in Almeria’s 40,000ha of greenhouses, many of which will have been wiped out by the storm.

The area of land surface affected by extreme drought has trebled since the 1980s, a new report into the effects of climate change has revealed.

Forty-eight per cent of the Earth’s land surface had at least one month of extreme drought last year, according to analysis by the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change - up from an average of 15% during the 1980s.

Almost a third of the world - 30% - experienced extreme drought for three months or longer in 2023. In the 1980s, the average was 5%.