A group of 36 businesses from the potato and horticulture sector is putting pressure on Defra to sanction an alternative body, to replace some of the functions carried out by AHDB.

The group, known as the Growers’ Better Levy Group (GBLG), met Defra farming minister Victoria Prentis this week to press their case for a new grower-managed research agency.

Members want Defra to allow both a small statutory levy to fund critical research work in the fruit, vegetable, mushroom and potato sectors, and a larger voluntary levy to pay for other programmes of work. The group is also hoping to pave the way for knowledge exchange and extension services.

Consumers are struggling to differentiate between genome edited (GE) and genetically modified (GM) food, with over a quarter having ‘never heard of’ GE.

This is according to the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Consumer perceptions of genome edited food report, which sought feedback from members of the public to help to inform future food policy and communications if GE rules change.

The study, which involved members of the public across England, Wales and Northern Ireland in online workshops and activities, followed by a survey of more than 2,000 consumers, found that consumers tended to have low awareness and very low knowledge of GE food, with half saying they were not very or not at all informed on the technology.

A genetic tweak to the RNA molecule in plants can significantly increase crop yields as well as increasing drought tolerance, new research shows. In initial field tests, adding a gene encoding for a protein called FTO to both potato and rice plants increased their yield by 50%.

The plants grew significantly larger, produced longer root systems and were better able to tolerate drought stress. Analysis also showed that the plants had increased their rate of photosynthesis.

The research from the University of Chicago, Peking University and Guizhou University has been published in science journal Nature Biotechnology.

A new National Food Strategy has today called on the Government to invest £1bn in research and development to help improve the national diet, develop sustainable farming practices and protect the environment.

In a landmark report commissioned by the Government in 2019 as the basis for its post-Brexit food strategy, food entrepreneur Henry Dimbleby calls on the Government to commit to a historic package of reforms in order to build a ‘better food system for a healthier nation’.

The strategy highlights how poor diets contribute to around 64,000 deaths every year in England alone, costing the economy an estimated £74 billion, and sets out how diets will need to change over the next 10 years in order to meet the Government’s existing targets on health, climate and nature.

Food commodities are likely to become cheaper in the coming decade as productivity grows, but global targets on reducing hunger and emissions are unlikely to be met under current policies, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and the OECD said on Monday.

Agricultural commodity prices have surged since last year due to a boom in Chinese imports and tightening inventories, leading the FAO last month to forecast record costs in 2021 for food importers.

However, prices of most agricultural commodities should fall slightly in real terms in the decade ahead, reverting to a long-term trend of improving production meeting rising demand from a growing population, the FAO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a joint report.

Supermarket Tesco is putting pressure on the UK government to accelerate the use of insect protein in animal feed as a way of reducing the agri-food sector’s environmental footprint.

A new report, commissioned by Tesco and environment group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), estimates that using insect meal to feed fish and livestock could cut the UK’s future soy footprint by one-fifth.

It suggests total demand for insect meal from the UK’s pig, poultry and salmon sectors could reach 540,000t/year by 2050, potentially replacing 16,000t of fishmeal and 524,000t of soya – equivalent to about 150,000ha of land.

A committee of MPs has lambasted the UK government's approach to nature, saying it is failing to stem huge losses of plants and species. Their report says that the UK has the lowest remaining levels of biodiversity among the world's richer nations.

The MPs say the government spends far more on exploiting the natural environment than it does conserving it. They're calling for legally binding targets for nature similar to the UK's climate laws.

The UK public should be urged by the government to protect the climate by eating less meat and dairy produce, advisers say.

Cattle are a major source of planet-heating gases, but ministers fear a backlash if they ask people to cut down on steak. But the Climate Change Committee (CCC) says people should reduce meat-eating for their health, as well as for the planet.

It says the issue's one of many failings of a government which is delivering only a fifth of its pledges on climate change. People should be asked to eat 20% less meat and dairy produce by 2030, and 35% less by 2050, the CCC insists.

The prime minister has set out plans to cement the UK's place as a "science superpower". Boris Johnson announced how increases in the research budget would be spent.

He will chair a new National Science and Technology Council to provide "strategic direction" on how research is harnessed for the "public good". And Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser to the government, will lead a new Office for Science and Technology Strategy.

Westminster’s efforts to identify post-Brexit business opportunities have concluded that the UK should embrace gene edited crops now it is no longer party to the European Union's limitations on biotech.

The proposal was one of 120 recommendations contained in a report issued by Prime Minister Johnson's Task Force on Innovation Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR), which argued that Brexit offered a ‘one-off opportunity’ to develop new domestic regulations to 'boost productivity, encourage competition and stimulate innovation'.

TIGRR's report has been welcomed by the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, Julian Sturdy MP, who said it was a 'major step forward' in liberating the UK’s strengths in agricultural science and innovation.