Plant more bean-like crops in Europe and consider ‘healthy diet transition’ to beat climate crisis, say scientists

Adding the likes of peas, lentils, beans, and chickpeas to your diet, and farming more of them, could result in more nutritious and effective food production with large environmental benefits, scientists have found.

Researchers calculated a “nutritional density” unit for different types of crops. They found that swapping cereals for leguminous plants in European crop rotations provided more nutrient-rich produce for both animal and human consumption. Thanks to the way that legumes grow, it also reduced synthetic fertiliser use and pollution.

A survey across the UK and 7 other European countries asked people about the use of veterinary medicines for the treatment and prevention of diseases in pets and farm animals.

The survey, commissioned by NOAH’s European animal health association AnimalhealthEurope, found good awareness of the benefits of medicines for the health and welfare of pets and farm animals, and of their role in helping farmers produce food more sustainably. However, some people were not aware of the strict rules already governing the authorisation and use of veterinary medicines.

Gene-edited sugar beet with built-in resistance to virus yellows disease could be grown commercially in the UK by the mid-2020s, says British Sugar.

The company is investigating gene-edited beet seed as a long-term solution to the disease, which devastated crops across eastern England during the 2020-21 season.

If government ministers give the green light, British farmers could be growing sugar beet crops gene edited to be resistant to virus yellows in three to five years, said British Sugar agriculture director Peter Watson.

Using genome editing technologies in plants could help the EU ensure food security and reduce the impact of current agriculture practice on the climate, according to new report by the European Group on Ethics in science and new technologies (EGE).

Allowing gene editing for precision breeding would help the EU achieve goals stated in its Farm to Fork strategy, of reducing use of fertilisers by 30 per cent and turning 25% of agricultural land over to organic farming by 2030.

“There is a need to ensure food security, provide renewable resources for fuel, feed and fibre, safeguard the retention of biodiversity and protect the environment,” the report says. “Current forms of agriculture contribute significantly to the anthropogenic climate crisis.”

Arable crops are now more vulnerable to weeds than before the advent of herbicides, according to a new study. Herbicide resistance, fertiliser, crop height and climate change mean weeds pose an unprecedented threat to food security, according to scientists at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire.

Data from the world’s longest-running experiment – the Rothamsted Broadbalk wheat trial – suggests less than one-third of the harvest was lost to weeds during the 1960s. But this had risen to more than half by 2005-2014.

Rothamsted Research scientist Jonathan Storkey said this was due to weeds doing better than crops in a warming climate, coupled with a shift towards shorter crop varieties that are shaded out by taller weeds.

The first crop of Dyson Farming’s strawberries from its new six-hectare glasshouse in Carrington, Lincolnshire will hit supermarket shelves this week. This marks the start of the season for the new venture, which will produce around 750 tonnes of strawberries each year in the giant greenhouse powered by renewable electricity and surplus heat from Dyson Farming’s anaerobic digester.

The company, which is owned by home appliances inventor Sir James Dyson and recently rebranded as Dyson Farming from Beeswax Dyson, says the project supports the advancement of high-tech, sustainable farming in the UK, and avoids unnecessary food miles that come from imported strawberries at this time of year.

Climate change will have a major impact on farming sectors, according to new projections by the Met Office, including an increase in heat stress in cattle and late blight in crops. The Met Office examined the effect of climate change on the dairy and potato farming sectors over the next thirty to fifty years.

It found that heat stress in dairy cattle is projected to increase significantly in key dairy regions of the UK, particularly South West England. The study also covered the climate change impacts on the potato sector due to late blight, a disease affecting potato crops which occurs in warm, humid weather.

Introducing seaweed to the diet of beef cattle could reduce methane emissions by 82 percent, according to new research. Scientists at the University of California, Davis say the results could pave the way for the sustainable production of livestock across the world.

Last summer, researchers added scant amounts of seaweed to the diet of 21 beef cattle and tracked their weight gain and methane emissions. Cattle that consumed doses of about 80 grams of seaweed gained as much weight as their herd mates while burping out 82% less methane into the atmosphere.

The NFU has responded to the Government’s consultation into future regulation surrounding gene editing, saying that changing regulations surrounding gene editing could protect crops and support its net zero by 2040 ambitions.

The NFU said that new precision breeding techniques, such as gene editing, could protect crops and animals from pests and disease, help deliver net zero and allow farmers to produce more home-grown food.

The government consultation is focused on stopping certain gene editing organisms from being regulated in the same way as genetic modification, as long as they could have been produced naturally or through traditional breeding.

Leaders of Scotland’s agricultural supply industry have called on rural stakeholders to unite to put pressure on the Scottish Government to change its stance on gene editing.

Getting access to the technology is among the key priorities of the AIC, the supply industry’s trade association, outlined in its manifesto ahead of the Scottish parliamentary elections in May.

The renewed pressure on the Scottish Government to reconsider the use of gene editing in agriculture comes as the UK Government’s consultation on the topic closes and just ahead of an imminent report by the European Commission.