China is leading the way on using drones to spray arable crops, and the presence of Chinese drone giant DJI’s agriculture division at the Agritechnica event in Hanover showed it is keen to flex its muscle in a market where it sees huge potential.

Up to now, Europe has lagged behind the US and China, but the sight of drones spraying arable crops may be getting closer, with signs that Europe is opening up regulation to permit their use.

DJI Agriculture has so far sold about 200,000 drones for spraying, 80% of which are in China.

From baguettes to beer, the world’s leading food and drinks makers are rushing to reduce their carbon footprint by tackling one of the hidden culprits of emissions in their value chains: fertilisers.

Ahead of disclosure rules for greenhouse emissions throughout their supply chains enacted next year, companies including PepsiCo, Heineken and Nestlé have turned to green fertiliser start-ups to help tackle emission levels.

Crop nutrients underpin production of half the world’s food but contribute significant CO₂ emissions at the same time. Fertilisers used for agricultural ingredients account for about 15 per cent of total emissions from beer supply chains and 35-40 per cent for bread, according to industry experts.

A group of scientists has challenged the claims of organic certification body Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G) that trebling the area farmed organically will deliver significant climate change and biodiversity benefits.

The claims are contained in a new report, Growing organic – a multifunctional component of English land use policy, which says a targeted shift towards organic farming can help the government meet its climate change and biodiversity goals.

But pro-science think-tank Science for Sustainable Agriculture has challenged these claims. “The scientific evidence increasingly indicates that optimising food production on as small a land area as possible is the most sustainable way to feed a growing population, while leaving space for nature and carbon sequestration,” said a spokesman.

EU agriculture ministers have failed to find a position on EU plans to relax rules on new genomic techniques (NGTs) as thorny issues like coexistence with organic farming and patentability continue to split European countries.

In July, the European Commission proposed to loosen the rules on certain NGTs, or gene editing – a number of new scientific methods used to alter genomes with the aim of genetically engineering certain traits into plants.

The Spanish EU Council Presidency – who will be succeeded by Belgium on 1 January – aimed to seal a deal on the Council’s position on the file during a meeting on Monday (11 December) – but their offering failed to reach the necessary majority for a general approach on NGTs.

A leading environmental advisor has urged governments to ‘follow the science' when it comes to methane emissions and to reject the ‘lazy lobbying' of green ‘extremism' ahead of the food and agriculture day at this year's COP28.

Fifth-generation farmer, researcher and AHDB policy expert Professor John Gilliland said it was time to end ‘soundbite media' and for agricultural policy to focus on evidence-based methane metrics.

"There is a lot of confusion surrounding Net Zero," Professor Gilliand said. "It is about getting businesses down to Net Zero yes, by reducing emissions, but also building carbon stocks, displacing fossil fuels with renewables and minimising waste. It is Net not Gross Zero. If you want Gross Zero that is no animals and no humans. We have to move away from the extremism."

The Environmental Audit Committee has argued the Government should 'not squander' its opportunity to enshrine food security as a 'central tenet' of the eagerly awaited land use framework.

The framework was intended to set out the Government's plans for agriculture, the environment and net zero, helping to guide farmers on how they can contribute towards the UK's environmental and nature goals.

The Committee called for the Government to prioritise publishing its plans, which the Government has said would be released later this year. The Committee argued the framework must set out how land will balance producing food in a sustainable way that supports a resilient food system, while also responding to environmental change.

Conservative MP Julian Sturdy, chair for the APPG on Science and Technology in Agriculture, has called for Defra to publish material on the impact of its Environmental Land Management (ELM) and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) policies, to see evidence that their strategies are maintaining national food production levels.

He wrote in an article for Science for Sustainable Agriculture how the question he tabled for Parliament reiterates understanding the reasoning and impact behind their scheme, such as paying farmers not to use approved insecticides and limiting fertiliser use to below optimum productivity levels.

“I am concerned that the policy emphasis on lower-yield farming practices such as these will inevitably take its toll on our domestic food production capacity, and increase our dependence on imports,” he said.

Today (5 December 2023), on World Soil Day, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) publishes the report to its inquiry into soil health.

Soil is vital to sustaining life on Earth, producing our food and sustaining rich ecosystems. Yet in recent years soil in the UK has become heavily degraded through over-use, erosion, compaction, or pollution. The EFRA Committee’s inquiry examined how the Government can turn the tide on soil degradation.

The Committee’s report calls for soil health to be put on the same footing as water and air quality within government policy, and calls for statutory targets on soil health, alongside the existing water and air quality targets, by 2028. This will need to be underpinned by data, agreed soil health indicators and widely accepted definitions of ‘sustainable soil management’.

British baked beans grown using innovative methods have progressed to the tinning phase, with researchers hailing it as a step towards sustainable, UK-sourced food options.

A specially bred haricot bean, grown in Lincolnshire with the help of Warwick University, are the first UK bean that can be used as baked beans. Previously, baked beans have had to be imported from as far as South America and China.

The beans are now grown on a commercial scale at a farm in Lincolnshire following 12 years of research. Warwick University scientists hope that the baked bean breakthrough will reduce the reliance on imports.

Food price inflation remains at 10% with prices still near record highs, but the situation could worsen next year as El Niño and climate change continues, a report warns.

As energy prices have come down in 2023, climate costs have gone up compared to last year, scientists at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) say.

Climate change now accounts for a third of all food price inflation, according to their new research. The continuing of the El Niño weather phenomenon, on top of climate change, could lead to more severe climate impacts and further increases in food prices in 2024, the report warns.