Livestock farmers and industry have questioned whether the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has enough resources to cope with the current threat of animal diseases including avian influenza, African swine fever, schmallenberg and the rise in bluetongue cases.

Speaking at NFU Council this week, deputy president Tom Bradshaw said the industry was ‘seeing austerity in action', adding APHA were doing everything it could within its budget, but Government must think how it is going to better resource APHA to deal with these challenges.

NFU dairy board chair, Michael Oakes said he had been told by someone at APHA they were doing some contingency planning for a future foot and mouth outbreak. He said APHA would be 'overwhelmed in hours' with the pressures it currently faces.

Defra's reclassification of many fruit and vegetable consignments from the EU as 'medium risk' from 'low risk' has been called a 'severe blow' to the fresh produce sector.

The Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), a UK trade association, has warned that the government's decision would add £200 million to the cost of fruit and vegetable imports.

Defra made the revision on the Government Plant Health Portal, confirming the reclassification of a substantial volume of EU fresh produce as 'medium risk'.

Independent agronomists are warning of “unforeseen consequences” arising from the Sustainable Farming Incentive, including the potential loss of food production and service industry contraction.

An interactive poll held at the recent Association of Independent Crop Consultants (AICC) conference revealed that the vast majority of members are involved in clients’ Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) applications, either taking control of the process or advising on suitable actions.

But attendees at the conference reported that significant areas of arable land are being taken out of food production and put into non-food producing SFI options.

The livestock industry is facing a potential explosion in animal diseases this spring and summer, with cases of bluetongue and Schmallenberg virus expected to spike in the warmer weather.

Although they belong to different families, both diseases are transmitted by biting Culicoides midges, which carry the infection and are blown over the English Channel from continental Europe.

Speaking at an NFU Council meeting this week, NFU Livestock Board chairman Richard Findlay said farmers in the Netherlands have seen more than 6,000 outbreaks of a new strain of bluetongue virus (BTV-3), with mortality rates in sheep of 35-40%.

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) approved on Wednesday (24 January) new rules for new genomic techniques (NGTs). The plenary will vote in two weeks, but doubts remain on whether a law can be approved before the elections.

With 47 votes in favour to 31 against and 4 abstentions, a right-leaning majority agreed to set two categories of NGTs: gene-edited plants that are “indistinguishable” from those obtained through conventional breeding (NGT 1) – which would be exempted from the requirements of the GMO legislation – and those with more “complex modifications” (NGT 2) – which would follow stricter rules.

In line with the Commission’s proposal, presented in July, MEPs agreed that NGT seeds must be labelled accordingly but that there would be no mandatory labelling at consumer level for the NGT 1 products. Lawmakers also voted to keep all NGTs out of organic production – claiming their compatibility “requires further attention” – and to prevent EU countries from banning them in their territory. While the EU executive decided to leave the question of patents unanswered, MEPs voted to introduce a full ban on patents for NGTs “to avoid legal uncertainties, increased costs and new dependencies for farmers and breeders”.

Professor Tina Barsby, a renowned plant scientist from Cambridge, has highlighted the disconnect between the UK's leadership in academic agricultural science and its lagging agricultural productivity growth.

Despite the UK ranking third in high-citation academic studies in agriculture, behind China and the USA, this academic prowess has not translated into significant productivity growth or attracted substantial private sector investment in agricultural innovation.

Barsby, reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the UK Agri-Tech Strategy, expressed frustration over its failure to catalyse a significant increase in productivity growth, inward investment, and collaborative models between the government, industry, and science sectors.

Defra has given the green light for growers to use a neonic seed treatment on the 2024 sugar beet crop, but with stricter conditions than previous years.

Syngenta’s Cruiser SB can only be used if there is a danger, as evidenced by an independent prediction, of yellows viruses incidence of 65% or more.

If this threshold is not met, use of the product will not be permitted, the government confirmed. Farming Minister Mark Spencer said the decision to approve the neonic was based on 'robust scientific assessment' and the risks had been 'evaluated very carefully.'

A city council which banned the use of a type of weedkiller is to reconsider its policy after finding manual removal ineffective. Brighton & Hove City Council banned the use of glyphosate in 2019 after it was linked to cancer and a decline in bee populations.

But on Monday, it said continuing with manual removal would see the city's weed problem continue to get worse. Tim Rowkins, chair of the City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee, said the authority had a duty to keep the streets "safe and accessible" and to limit the damage weeds were causing to highways.

He said: "Relying on manual removal hasn't been effective and requires a lot of time and money. Even if we were able to resource it... the problem would continue to get worse year on year." He also said weeds were negatively affecting the "look and feel" of the city.

Scientists are aiming to unlock the potential of clover and other legumes to reduce the use of fertiliser and emissions from livestock following a £3.3m grant.

Researchers will look at the ability of red and white clover and another legume, Birdsfoot Trefoil, to improve livestock productivity whilst reducing reliance on fertilisers.

It is part of a new UK government funded project in partnership with the farming industry and scientists at IBERS, a research institute at Aberystwyth University. New legume varieties have been developed by seed firm Germinal and the university that are more resilient to grazing and extreme weather.

A unique project to develop a commercially viable system for precisely targeting orchard inputs to specific trees, or even parts of a tree, has been given the go-ahead.

The project will use cutting-edge tech to digitally examine fruit trees in fine detail to allow inputs to be targeted in a way that has never been seen before in UK orchards. The ultimate aim of the 4-year study is to reduce the environmental impact of fruit production by using fewer plant protection products, while boosting efficiency.

It will use digital scanning to generate precision dosing maps for blossom and fruit thinning, fertiliser application, growth regulators, pest control, and fungicides, as well as provide more accurate yield forecasting for growers.

University research has revealed how regenerative farming can help soils hold nutrients and water around roots for longer, resulting in greater nutrient availability to crops.

These are the initial findings from a study being conducted at the University of Leeds Farm, aimed at shedding light on the benefits of regenerative cultivation techniques.

The study is comparing soil health, crop production, greenhouse gas emissions, and profit of different farming systems across seven 12x40m plots.

Consumers and food safety groups should get over the ‘yuck factor' and embrace edible insects as part of a more sustainable food system, according to a new report.

The UK Edible Insect Association (UKEIA) study, produced with support from the University of Sheffield's Institute for Sustainable Food, said edible insects are environmentally-friendly sources of protein and could help find solutions to other issues such as tackling climate change.

The research also highlighted that current Food Standards Agency (FSA) Novel Food Regulations impose an extremely high barrier to entry for edible insect companies, potentially restricting the sector's potential to contribute to a more sustainable food system.