Grasslands are one of the best land management options available for mitigating climate change, sheep producers have told policymakers ahead of COP26. The National Sheep Association (NSA) said that grasslands should be 'properly acknowledged' as effective carbon sinks and for delivering public goods.

Roughly two-thirds of terrestrial carbon in British landscapes is found below ground with most captured in organic matter and plant roots, the body explained. "With the climate and nature recovery debate raging, it is time policy makers caught up with the evidence," NSA chief executive, Phil Stocker said. "Grasslands are truly multifunctional, supporting food production as well as offering many environmental benefits.”

Defra Secretary George Eustice has said farmers will need to cut mineral fertiliser use ‘quite significantly’ in order to meet the country’s net zero emissions target.

His remarks came as the fertiliser industry faced a ‘perfect storm’, with rocketing wholesale gas prices prompting a Government bailout of CF Fertilisers, which also supplies about 60 per cent of the UK’s carbon dioxide as a by-product.

The targeted use of mixed legumes in agricultural systems could enhance yields while protecting pollinators, new research has found. Protein-rich legumes deliver a range of agronomic and environmental benefits including providing a substitute to meat-based proteins for human consumption.

They also decrease requirements for imported soybean in livestock systems, and - by fixing atmospheric nitrogen - reduce reliance on inorganic fertilisers and supress weeds and diseases. In addition, legumes such as field beans and clover, provide sugar-rich nectar and protein-rich pollen, helping to mitigate pollinator declines.

The UK government is to relax the regulation of gene-edited crops to enable commercial growing in England.

The plants are to be tested and assessed in the same way as conventional new varieties.

The changes are possible because the UK no longer has to follow European Union regulations, which are the strictest in the world.

Amid reports that Boris Johnson is set for on-to-one talks with President Joe Biden in Washington next week to discuss joint action on climate change, a prominent farming MP has written to the Prime Minister urging him to include food and agriculture on the agenda, and in particular to sign the UK up to the new US-led Global Coalition for Agricultural Productivity Growth.

In the letter, Julian Sturdy MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, said the close relationship between the UK and the US was of critical importance to securing a successful outcome to the forthcoming COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, and nowhere was this more crucial than in relation to food and agriculture, and the future policies which will support more sustainable approaches to feeding a hungry, warming planet.

Earlier this week, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called on other nations to join the US in a new Global Coalition for Agricultural Productivity Growth, directly challenging the notion that more sustainable equals less productive by demonstrating that farmers can adopt environmentally friendly and climate-smart farming practices without sacrificing productivity.

The public want farmers to have access to new precision breeding techniques such as gene-editing to respond better to climate change, a new survey says. It indicates rising concern about the environment following a summer of droughts and heat waves, including the hottest temperatures recorded in Europe since records began.

The YouGov survey of over 2,000 adults, carried out on behalf of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, shows public enthusiasm for new approaches to farming in light of these extremes.

The majority of those surveyed (81%) agreed that farmers should be able to benefit from innovations that could help them play their role in meeting the UK goal of reaching net-zero by 2050. Three-quarters (75%) of respondents agreed that one of the key advantages of embracing innovations in agriculture is the reduction in the UK’s reliance on imports from other countries.

The NFU is calling for a commitment from government that Britain’s food production will not slip below its current level of 60% self-sufficiency. They also want to see greater ambition in promoting British food at home and abroad to help with food security.

NFU President Minette Batters officially launched the new British Food: Leading The Way report at their Back British Farming Day event in Westminster. She asked the government to complete a comprehensive report on UK food security later this year, covering the country’s production of key foods and its contribution to global food security.

Ministers are set to give the go-ahead to the use of gene editing in agriculture which could see altered produce on the supermarket shelves in five years time, i can reveal.

The Government is expected to issue its response to its own consultation on the technology at the end of the month that will give the green light to the “cautious exploration” of genetic engineering in farming.

The move will mark the biggest divergence by the UK away from existing European laws since leaving the EU, which has banned the technique for years amid fears it is unsafe.

Planting hedgerows on arable land to boost populations of pollinating insects could increase crop yields by 10%, according to new research. CPRE, the countryside charity, wants the government to act on the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee and expand the UK’s hedgerow network by 40% by 2050.

The charity commissioned the Organic Research Centre (ORC) to investigate what this could mean for farmers and others. In that study, hedgerows were shown to cut the need for pesticide controls by 30% and increase yields by 10%.

CPRE said this demonstrated that strategic planting of hedgerows on arable land has the potential to pay for itself. It calculated that for every £1 invested in hedgerows, farmers would see a £1.73 return from higher crop yields and reduced spend on pesticides. 

Genetic innovation may create opportunities to transform agri-food systems through nutritionally healthier crop varieties that have greater disease resistance, the Regulatory Horizons Council said. The expert committee's report, which issued recommendations to government, suggested that genetic changes could help chemical use and greenhouse gas emissions fall. This in turn would improve climate resilience and contribute to more sustainable agricultural systems, the Council's report explained.

The British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB), the representative body for the UK plant breeding industry, welcomed the report. "This report recognises the benefits of genetic technologies and supports the proposals set out in the recent Defra consultation to take simple gene edited crop varieties – which could have occurred in nature or through conventional plant breeding – out of the scope of existing genetically modified organism (GMO) regulation," BSPB CEO, Samantha Brooke said.