A new five-year strategy to protect crops and plants from pests and diseases has been published as the government looks to bolster domestic food production.

The GB-wide plant biosecurity strategy, launched by Defra on Monday (9 January), aims to position the UK as a global leader in plant and crop biosecurity.

It sets out a vision to create a new biosecurity regime and bio-secure plant supply chain, which the government says will safeguard food security and help mitigate the effects of climate change.

A study from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has supported a proposal to relax restrictions on gene editing technology to improve crop yields and boost resistance to diseases.

The IEA report has backed the government’s proposed Precision Breeding Bill, which aims to update the regulatory framework related to precision-bred plants and animals developed through techniques such as gene editing.

Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the journal People and Nature.

The research, led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Glasgow, provides the first evidence for the taxpayer savings offered by focusing food production in certain areas to allow the creation of new woods, wetland and scrub habitats on some of the land currently used for farming.

The study suggests that this "land sparing" approach would cost just 48% of the funds required to achieve the same outcomes for biodiversity and the climate through an approach known as "land sharing", where conservation measures get mixed into farming by adding hedgerows to fields, reducing pesticides, and so on—all of which lowers food yield.

The Government has set out a raft of legally binding targets, including a 40 per cent reduction in on-farm nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants and a 16.5 per cent increase in woodland cover, to help boost the natural environment.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published a list of 13 objectives that have been designed to boost biodiversity while producing cleaner air and water sources.

According to Defra, the targets will help ‘drive forward’ the Government’s commitment to tackle climate change and restore ‘natural capital’ and landscapes.

Defra is providing funding of £12.5m in England to support innovations that will help reduce labour, improve productivity and create more sustainable farming practices.

Defra farming minister Mark Spencer said: “This is an exciting opportunity for farmers and growers to come together with businesses and researchers to invent ingenious solutions to the problems our agriculture and horticulture sectors face.

“Automation and robotics has huge potential to improve productivity and sustainability. By supporting some of the most promising ideas to get off the ground, we are investing in a successful agriculture and horticulture industry for generations to come.”

Israeli researchers say they have developed gene-edited hens that lay eggs from which only female chicks hatch. The breakthrough could prevent the slaughter of billions of male chickens each year, which are culled because they don't lay eggs.

The female chicks, and the eggs they lay when they mature, have no trace of the original genetic alteration. Animal welfare group, Compassion in World Farming, has backed the research.

The development and application of agricultural technologies must become a priority for the UK government if the farming sector is to achieve net zero, new research warns.

The government has put forward the ambitious plan of delivering net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, while at the same time increasing the quality and quantity of agricultural production. The NFU has pushed for an even more progressive target and is aiming for English and Welsh agriculture to reach net-zero emissions by 2040.

However, a report by Bayer Crop Science and the Agri-EPI Centre warns that unless the government revamps its approach to innovation and the implementation of agri-tech, its net-zero ambitions are at risk of failure.

PepsiCo has opened its first UK oat testing lab, in partnership with the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), to help Quaker Oats growers to produce high-quality oats while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and maximising yield.

The new laboratory is located at plant science research organisation NIAB in Cambridge. According to PepsiCo, expert crop researchers will use the grain quality testing facilities at the site “to test and analyse thousands of oat samples from regenerative agricultural trials for milling and nutritional requirements”.

The data collected from the lab will be used in PepsiCo research initiatives, including the company’s Opti-Oat Crop Intelligence programme, which offers information and insights on how to grow “the perfect oat”.

The UK should increase visas for seasonal workers as part of a drive to cultivate as much food as possible domestically, a former chief of MI5 has said.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led the domestic intelligence service from 2002 to 2007, said in a lecture that security of food supplies would fit within the government’s own definition of national security. She said she believed this meant strengthening domestic supply.

“We need to acknowledge that we should produce as much of our own food as we can, with due regard to sustainability, and be able to export what we can,” the former director-general of the Security Service told members of the National Farmers’ Union.

A collaboration project in the malting barley industry aims to use regenerative agricultural techniques to cut crop carbon emissions by half in just five years.

Set up by global beverage company Suntory, malt supplier Muntons, consultancy firm Future Food Solutions and a group of farmers lead by Dewing Grain, the project will explore how barley can be grown in a more sustainable way to reduce emissions and protect watersources.

Starting from the 2022 autumn drilling campaign, the trial will see a group of 16 Norfolk farmers set a baseline for all crop-related emissions across a 160ha area. Data will be collected to design a programme that seeks to reduce emissions, enhance soil health and protect water, while maintaining crop performance and grain quality.