Government ambitions to boost food production while protecting nature risk ‘overpromising’ finite UK land due to a lack of robust data and disjointed policy making.

The new report, published today (1 February) by the Royal Society, calls for joined up government policy and better data to get the most out of UK land. At the heart of this should be a drive towards a more sophisticated, data-driven measurement of the multiple benefits that UK land provides.

The report recommends developing a shared and accessible evidence base, incorporating the full range of information necessary to support robust land use decisions.

The UK government risks "overpromising" finite land with its multiple ambitions on farming, nature and renewable energy, according to a report from scientific academy The Royal Society. It says an area the size of Northern Ireland could be needed to accommodate current policy targets by 2030.

Farming and forestry groups have welcomed the report and say it shows the need for a UK land-use framework. The report, from the UK National Academy of Sciences, concludes that current policies on land use are "disjointed" and there needs to be more innovative approaches to get the most out of our land.

"The UK does not have enough land for any of it to be non-productive," said the report's steering group chairman, Sir Charles Godfray, who is director of Oxford University's Oxford Martin School. "But when we say productive, we don't just mean producing food but producing public good, as well."

Defra has announced a five-year delivery plan to improve the the environment, which includes incentivising most farmers to adopt nature-friendly practices on at least 10 to 15% of their land by 2030.

The government has today published its Environmental Improvement Plan 2023, which includes actions to "halt and then reverse the decline in nature".

For the farming industry, the plan requires 65 to 80% of farmers to adopt nature friendly farming practices on at least 10-15% of their land by 2030. They will also be supported to create or restore 30,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2037 and 45,000 miles of hedgerows a year by 2050.

Westminster is moving forward with its Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, whilst the Scottish Government is refusing to allow rules to be changed in Scotland.

A Legislative Consent Memorandum – which would see increased flexibility in modern plant breeding technologies across the UK – looks like being turned down by the Holyrood Government.

This bill would remove precision-bred organisms (PBOs) from the authorisation requirements under GMO legislation and instead bring in two mandatory notification systems for PBOs, one for non-marketing purposes (research and development) and one for marketing purposes.

Price rises in the UK slowed for a second month in a row but the cost of food including milk, cheese and eggs kept inflation at a 40-year high.

Inflation, which measures the rate of price rises, fell to 10.5% in the year to December from 10.7% in November.

Petrol and diesel costs eased last month but food prices continued to soar, reaching the highest since 1977.

The UK does not produce enough fruit and vegetables for its population to get the recommended five portions a day intake, according to new analysis.

Even without taking waste into account, the UK would need to produce or import 9% more fruit and veg for everyone to be able to eat the recommended amount.

The analysis, from the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) research group, is intended to inform policy makers of the need to increase production as well as consumption.

Researchers have managed to create clones of high-performing hybrid varieties that end the need for farmers to buy expensive new seeds every year. The resulting rice plants maintain their bumper yields for at least three generations, in an advance that came after decades of attempts.

First-generation hybrids of crop plants often show better yields and performance than their parent strains – a phenomenon called hybrid vigour. But the effects are then lost when the hybrids are bred together for a second generation, so farmers wanting to keep getting the best harvest must buy new seed each season. The extra cost means that the benefits of rice hybrids have yet to reach many of the world’s farmers.

An international team of researchers from institutions including the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development and University of California have now found a way to reproduce the hybrid vigour generation after generation.

Agritech should be a key focus for British scientific innovation post-Brexit, UK science minister George Freeman has suggested. In a speech to centre-right think tank Onward on 11 January, he said the UK would need to set “realistic” ambitions if it is excluded from EU science schemes, Politico reported.

Britain has applied to join EU programmes including the Horizon Europe research and development framework. But the European Commission has refused to sign off on Britain’s involvement until a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland has been resolved.

Freeman stressed the importance of new UK funding initiatives designed to facilitate bilateral projects with non-EU science powerhouses such as Japan, Switzerland and Israel. This could see British science focus on areas such as agritech, the gene editing of crops, functional foods, and synthetic biology, as well as space and biosecurity.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts persistent polycrises of food, energy and fertilizer shortages during the next two years. A new report says starkly how food system failures are unavoidable and society can expect further food price spikes as the cost of living crisis continues.

The organization calls for bold leadership actions to embrace the complex situation holistically, bringing dual solutions that target both food security and climate change.

“We must face this crisis with the certainty of multiple food crises to follow,” underscores Tania Strauss, head of strategy and global projects for the WEF.

Wheat containing exotic DNA from wild relatives benefit from up to 50% higher yields in hot weather compared with elite lines lacking these genes, UK researchers say.

Following a year when temperature records have been smashed, research from the Earlham Institute in Norwich offers hope for improving crop resilience and food security.

The field trials in Mexico, undertaken with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), also emphasise the importance of genetic diversity in key crops.