Scientists believe gene editing and speed breeding could be used to double global wheat yields, feed a growing global population and reduce pressure on land.

Wheat is the world’s most widely grown crop and is second only to rice in terms of human consumption, with global harvests in the region of 750 million tons.

But crop scientists say the crop has “untapped genetic potential”, which could be exploited to deliver higher yields and achieve global food security in a sustainable way.

The pandemic, global interruption to supply chains, rising costs of major primary commodities, conflicts and humanitarian crises threaten the functioning of world agrifood systems, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said today.

“We are at serious risk of facing a food access crisis now, and probably a food availability crisis for the next season. All this has put at risk our efforts to achieve the SDGs,” Qu said at the opening of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York.

The farming industry must do more to change young people’s views of agriculture and horticulture if it is to attract new entrants to the sector, according to a new report.

The aim of the study, commissioned by the Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (TIAH) and carried out by Family Kids and Youth Market Research and Consultancy, was to understand the main barriers preventing newcomers from following a career in farming and comes as a response to the acute, industry-wide labour shortages.

The report considered the views of 14 focus groups including young people, careers teachers, parents and grandparents from across England and found that there was either little or no knowledge of farming outside those already involved.

Defra has allocated a £12.5m funding pot to improve the efficiency of farm-based protein production in the UK, and so reduce dependence on imports.

Funding will be drawn from the £270m Farming Innovation Programme and earmarked for farm-led research and development into sustainable protein production.

The money will be available to farmers, growers, businesses and academics to collaborate on projects that improve protein crops such as beans and peas. Ultimately the government wants to improve the resilience of England’s farms by reducing the reliance on imported protein sources, which have seen costs soar.

Agriculture’s progress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been described as “glacial” in a damning independent report that says the government is not on track to meet its net-zero target by 2050.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) 2022 progress report to parliament concludes that agriculture and land use have the weakest policies, despite being vital to delivering net-zero emissions.

In further criticism of the government’s recently published food strategy, the CCC said the plan did little to address farming’s slow progress on reversing climate change, which must now be remedied in the new land use framework promised next year.

A new study has found the climate impact of food miles has been underestimated by 3.5-7.5 times, with transport accounting for 19 per cent of total food system emissions.

The research, published in the journal Nature Food, recommended that people in affluent countries eat more locally-produced foods in order to mitigate their environmental impact.

Scientists analysed 74 countries and regions and 37 different types of food, as opposed to focusing on selected commodities such as canned tomatoes or beef and wheat, as other assessments of food miles have done. They found fruit and vegetables had the highest food miles emissions because they often need to be refrigerated and are in demand out of season.

The UK pig sector reduced antibiotic use by 17% in 2021 despite farmers experiencing an extremely challenging year, new figures show. It brings the total reduction since 2015 to 69%, according to data collected using the electronic medicine book (eMB), which represent 95% of UK pigs slaughtered.

Antibiotic use in 2021 stood at 87mg/PCU, compared with 105mg/PCU in 2020. The fall was possible despite issues such as the on-farm pig backlog and rising costs. The result is also a step towards meeting the second set of targets developed by the RUMA Targets Task Force, of a 30% reduction in total antibiotic use by the end of 2024, based on data from 2020.

UK grocery price inflation is now at its highest level since April 2009, new figures from data company Kantar show.

Consumers are seeing the highest rises in food bills in 13 years as the cost of living crisis continues to impact households.

According to Kantar's latest data, grocery inflation surged to 8.3% over the past month - up from 7% a month earlier.

Scientists from eight leading UK laboratories are joining forces to develop new ways to fight bird flu. The consortium has been given £1.5m to develop strategies to tackle recent outbreaks of the H5N1 strain causing severe illness and death in birds.

This version of bird flu has hit the poultry industry hard, with culls and indoor housing measures enforced. While the risk to humans is low, in 2021, there was a confirmed human case of the strain in South West England.

There have now been more than 120 outbreaks in farmed poultry and wild bird populations. This winter's outbreak of avian flu is the largest and longest ever in the UK.

ALISTER Jack is to call on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee to probe the Scottish Government’s rejection of new gene-editing legislation.

Last week, environment secretary Màiri McAllan said Scotland would not adopt the reforms to regulations proposed in the UK government’s proposed Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill.

Mr Jack, the Secretary of State for Scotland and George Eustice, the Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, food and rural affairs, had asked the minister to consider backing the new law so that the relatively new technology could be used on both sides of the border. They said the technology could help "tackle the challenges of our age.”