Science agencies and farming organisations welcomed the announcement of measures to provide a more straightforward route to market for seeds and crops using advanced breeding technologies such as gene editing in the Queen’s Speech.

The announcement revealed that the UK Government would bring forward new primary legislation, ‘The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill’, to take certain precision breeding techniques out of the scope of restrictive GMO rules - where the resulting plants could have occurred naturally or through conventional breeding methods.

Following the recent introduction of rule changes to free up experimental field trials of gene edited crops, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) said the announcement marked a further important step towards more science-based and proportionate regulation of technologies such as gene editing, giving a boost to prospects for UK plant science and the development of more sustainable farming systems.

Boris Johnson’s government will push ahead with legislation to allow the gene editing of animals and crops in a bid to improve Britain’s agricultural productivity.

Gene editing is considered to pose less risk that genetic modification (GM) since it does not involve the introduction DNA from another species. But the practice is still controversial, with campaigners warning about potential safety implications from a “high-tech free-for-all”.

The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill outlined in the Queen’s Speech is aimed at promoting “efficient” farming and food production – stripping out rules inherited from the EU after Brexit.

Gene editing of animals and crops will be approved under legislation intended to improve productivity, make food more nutritious and reduce reliance on pesticides and antibiotics.

Unlike genetic modification (GM), gene editing does not involve introducing DNA from another species and is considered by many scientists to pose less risk.

However, the technology has been hampered by a 2018 ruling from the European Court of Justice that it must be regulated in the same way as GM. The Precision Breeding Bill will introduce an exemption to the regulatory definition of genetically modified organisms to exclude genetic changes “that could have been achieved through traditional breeding or which could occur naturally”.

Australia and New Zealand have approved the sale and use of foods that contain so-called HB4 wheat, a genetically modified (GMO) variety developed by Argentine firm Bioceres to withstand droughts and herbicides, the firm said on Friday.

Argentina, one of the world's largest wheat exporters, was the first country to approve GMO wheat in 2020, followed by Brazil in 2021, a trend that could continue if global supply is further constrained by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

A dormant gene in a plant has been switched back on for the first time without creating a genetically modified organism in a breakthrough that could revolutionise farming.

Scientists at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire used the genetic snipping system Crispr to relocate a piece of code in the Arabidopsis species so that it switched on a sleeping gene which produces vegetable oil in the leaves. Oil content was shown to be increased by around 30-fold.

Agricultural groups have appealed to ministers to put food and farming at the forefront of the new Natural History GSCE which was unveiled recently.

The NFU and Country Land and Business Association (CLA) have both issued calls to education minister Nadim Zahawi to ensure that an understanding of the rural economy and how food is produced is included on the curriculum.

NFU chief education manager Joshua Payne said: “We passionately believe that learning about farming and food production should form a key part of teaching sustainability within the GCSE curriculum. It is incredibly important for children to understand the importance of farming to rural communities, its role in feeding the nation and to showcase careers in agriculture.”

A new project, involving a number of UK research centres, is to work towards the development of high-fibre white bread.

The wheat varieties, which will be used in the programme, have been specifically developed by staff at Rothamsted Research for the UK and Irish climate.

Leading the interdisciplinary project team are staff from the University of Reading. They will be looking at the supply chain for high-fibre wheat production and the impact on the health of consumers. Consumer acceptability will also be explored including taste testing of high-fibre white bread in a major supermarket within three years.

An ambitious research project investigating technology which produces food products from grass is set to launch after receiving £2m funding. The Pasture to Plate (P2P) project, led by Harper Adams and the University of Bath, seeks to develop a revolutionary system for converting grass into food.

After processing the grass, researchers will separate out a wide range of initial nutrients, after which they will culture yeast on the remaining material. Scientists will then convert it into oils and further extractable edible food fractions, with any residual material converted into a nutrient rich fertilizer.

Principal investigator for the project, Dr Richard Green, said: “It is very efficient – we estimate that from around one and a half to two kilos of dried grass, we can produce a kilo of edible food fractions.

The four UK Agri-Tech Centres – CHAP, CIEL, Agri-EPI and Agrimetrics – are progressing a sustainable farming partnership with world leading agricultural research and training organisation, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands.

The new partnership will seek to advance science and innovation to help meet the challenges of sustainable global food production, including the reduction of its environmental impact.

Recognising the UK Agri-Tech Centres’ position as the hub of UK agrifood innovation, WUR approached the Centres with a proposal to collaborate. The partners will seek to establish new, joint opportunities for innovative public-private partnerships in agrifood science and business.

Dining on the likes of lab-grown meat or ground-up insects could lead to big savings in carbon emissions and water, as well as freeing up land for nature. That's the finding of a study calculating the environmental benefits of "greener" foods hitting our plates.

Scientists say pressures on the planet could fall by more than 80% with such foods, compared with the typical European diet. But it's not yet clear if consumers will want to shift their eating habits. A host of non-conventional foods are being developed with the aim of providing food rich in protein and other nutrients, while being gentle on the planet by using less water and land.

Scientists in Finland studied the nutritional profile of some of these products and looked at three measures of environmental pressure: the use of water, land and potential carbon emissions. They say switching meat, dairy and other animal products for alternative foods could reduce these impacts by more than 80%, while providing a more complete range of essential nutrients than a purely vegetarian or vegan diet.