Achieving a 25 per cent reduction in agricultural greenhouse gas emissions will prove “very challenging” but debate on the subject must remain grounded in facts, the head of Ireland’s Agricultural Science Association (ASA) has said.

Dr George Ramsbottom said despite the tenor of recent public discourse, emissions have remained relatively unchanged since the 1990s and he saw no signs of any increase in the dairy herd.

“You’d imagine from what’s being reported that there was kind of an explosion in stock numbers and an explosion in emissions going on but the reality is probably not quite as dramatic as that,” he said, speaking ahead of the forthcoming Agricultural Science Association conference next month.

Supermarket shoppers could soon be checking the environmental impact of food before putting it in their trolleys, thanks to new research. Reliable information of this kind hasn't been available. That's because UK manufacturers only have to list their main ingredients, and that's by percentage, not amount.

Scientists have overcome the problem by using public databases to estimate the composition of thousands of food products and their impact. Many consumers want to know how their weekly food shop affects the planet, even though rising prices will likely be a more immediate concern for most.

Prof Peter Scarborough from Oxford University told BBC News he hopes that the research leads to an eco-labelling system for customers, but he believes that the bigger impact would come if the food industry uses it to cut its environmental footprint.

A project to facilitate more planting of the perennial bioenergy crop, Miscanthus, has been awarded over £3.3 million in funding through the second phase of the government’s Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme, to contribute to 2050 net zero targets.

Miscanthus specialist, Terravesta, has been successful in its bid to secure Phase 2 funding for its OMENZ project which stands for ‘Optimising Miscanthus Establishment through improved mechanisation and data capture to meet Net Zero targets’.

OMENZ will deliver improvements on the entire Miscanthus establishment process, including approaches to producing planting material, field preparation, innovative agri-tech, new planting techniques, and cutting-edge technologies to monitor establishment in the field.

Agri-environment schemes can significantly increase local bird and butterfly populations without damaging food production, a long-term research project has found.

Scientists from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) spent a decade monitoring the impacts of a large-scale Defra-funded experiment at Hillesden, a 1,000-hectare arable farm in Buckinghamshire.

Beginning in 2005, this involved creating several wildlife habitats, including seed-bearing plants for birds, wildflowers for pollinators and tussocky grass margins to support a range of birds, insects and small mammals.

Faced with an urgent need to drive improvements in the productivity, resilience and climate impact of British agriculture, leading plant scientist, Professor Jane Langdale, from the University of Oxford, has called on government to prioritise investment in crop genetic research as a primary driver of productivity in agriculture.

Writing on the Science for Sustainable Agriculture website, Professor Langdale – who led and authored a major review of UK plant science last year – asked why, in its plans for R and D funding, the UK Government was spending 20 times more on digital and precision farming projects, such as robotic harvesters, AI and sensor technology than it planned to invest in long-term, strategic crop genetic research.

“These agri-tech innovations are incredibly important in driving efficiency improvements at individual farm level, but they will prove to be relatively worthless without supporting corresponding gains in genetic potential," she argued.

Defra has launched a £12.5 million competition to help accelerate the development of technologies to create new sources of resource efficient, low-emission proteins.

Farmers, growers, foresters, businesses and researchers can apply with projects to help increase domestic production of healthy and sustainable protein, such as methane reducing animal feeds and high protein crops.

Agri-science experts are starting a new project to develop a photonic ‘nose’ to monitor crops for pest infestations and plant disease. Aston University is collaborating with land-based college Harper Adams University to develop technology using light to monitor crop health.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, up to 40% of global crop production is lost to pests annually. Each year, plant diseases cost the global economy over $220 billion, and invasive insects at least $70 billion.

The research will be using strawberries to test the new technology, a fruit worth £350m to the UK economy, but vulnerable to potato aphid which has the potential to wipe out an annual harvest.

Defra has published the results of a review exploring how the horticulture sector can make use of innovative tech such as packhouse automation, AI enabled robotics and autonomous guided vehicles.

With labour shortages affecting the sector due to the impacts of the pandemic and Brexit, the review of automation was launched to help reduce the sector's reliance on migrant workers.

The review brought together experts across horticulture and technology to understand what would be required to accelerate the development of automation technologies.

By giving a Chinese rice variety a second copy of one of its own genes, researchers have boosted its yield by up to 40%. The change helps the plant absorb more fertilizer, boosts photosynthesis, and accelerates flowering, all of which could contribute to larger harvests, the group reports today in Science.

The yield gain from a single gene coordinating these multiple effects is “really impressive,” says Matthew Paul, a plant geneticist at Rothamsted Research who was not involved in the work. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like that before.” The approach could be tried in other crops, too, he adds; the new study reports preliminary findings in wheat.

A York MP has called for climate change to be tackled through new technology and science - NOT measures which would harm economic growth and living standards.

York Outer Tory MP Julian Sturdy asked in the Commons if the President of the COP 26 climate change conference, Alok Sharma, agreed “that net zero should be achieved through rolling-out low carbon technology and scientific solutions, such as the gene editing Bill, rather than measures that dampen economic growth and depress living standards?"

Alok Sharma replied that this was “absolutely right. Green technologies and innovations are what is going to help us achieve the net zero target.” He agreed that gene editing, which allows for more food to be produced from crops and animals using fewer resources, was a good example of this.