Westminster is moving forward with its Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill, whilst the Scottish Government is refusing to allow rules to be changed in Scotland.

A Legislative Consent Memorandum – which would see increased flexibility in modern plant breeding technologies across the UK – looks like being turned down by the Holyrood Government.

This bill would remove precision-bred organisms (PBOs) from the authorisation requirements under GMO legislation and instead bring in two mandatory notification systems for PBOs, one for non-marketing purposes (research and development) and one for marketing purposes.

Price rises in the UK slowed for a second month in a row but the cost of food including milk, cheese and eggs kept inflation at a 40-year high.

Inflation, which measures the rate of price rises, fell to 10.5% in the year to December from 10.7% in November.

Petrol and diesel costs eased last month but food prices continued to soar, reaching the highest since 1977.

The UK does not produce enough fruit and vegetables for its population to get the recommended five portions a day intake, according to new analysis.

Even without taking waste into account, the UK would need to produce or import 9% more fruit and veg for everyone to be able to eat the recommended amount.

The analysis, from the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) research group, is intended to inform policy makers of the need to increase production as well as consumption.

China has approved the import of eight genetically modified (GMO) crops, including GMO alfalfa for the first time, the country's agriculture ministry said on Friday.

Global seed companies have long complained about China's slow approval process for GM crops, which slows down commercialisation of the products globally if they are not approved by one of the world's biggest agriculture markets.

Beijing has long taken a cautious approach to GMO technology and has not yet approved any major crops for cultivation, despite President Xi Jinping's backing of the technology. It does however allow the import of GM crops used in animal feed or for textiles, but trade partners say its process is not always based on science and has often been driven by politics.

Researchers have managed to create clones of high-performing hybrid varieties that end the need for farmers to buy expensive new seeds every year. The resulting rice plants maintain their bumper yields for at least three generations, in an advance that came after decades of attempts.

First-generation hybrids of crop plants often show better yields and performance than their parent strains – a phenomenon called hybrid vigour. But the effects are then lost when the hybrids are bred together for a second generation, so farmers wanting to keep getting the best harvest must buy new seed each season. The extra cost means that the benefits of rice hybrids have yet to reach many of the world’s farmers.

An international team of researchers from institutions including the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development and University of California have now found a way to reproduce the hybrid vigour generation after generation.

Agritech should be a key focus for British scientific innovation post-Brexit, UK science minister George Freeman has suggested. In a speech to centre-right think tank Onward on 11 January, he said the UK would need to set “realistic” ambitions if it is excluded from EU science schemes, Politico reported.

Britain has applied to join EU programmes including the Horizon Europe research and development framework. But the European Commission has refused to sign off on Britain’s involvement until a dispute over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland has been resolved.

Freeman stressed the importance of new UK funding initiatives designed to facilitate bilateral projects with non-EU science powerhouses such as Japan, Switzerland and Israel. This could see British science focus on areas such as agritech, the gene editing of crops, functional foods, and synthetic biology, as well as space and biosecurity.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts persistent polycrises of food, energy and fertilizer shortages during the next two years. A new report says starkly how food system failures are unavoidable and society can expect further food price spikes as the cost of living crisis continues.

The organization calls for bold leadership actions to embrace the complex situation holistically, bringing dual solutions that target both food security and climate change.

“We must face this crisis with the certainty of multiple food crises to follow,” underscores Tania Strauss, head of strategy and global projects for the WEF.

Wheat containing exotic DNA from wild relatives benefit from up to 50% higher yields in hot weather compared with elite lines lacking these genes, UK researchers say.

Following a year when temperature records have been smashed, research from the Earlham Institute in Norwich offers hope for improving crop resilience and food security.

The field trials in Mexico, undertaken with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), also emphasise the importance of genetic diversity in key crops.

A new five-year strategy to protect crops and plants from pests and diseases has been published as the government looks to bolster domestic food production.

The GB-wide plant biosecurity strategy, launched by Defra on Monday (9 January), aims to position the UK as a global leader in plant and crop biosecurity.

It sets out a vision to create a new biosecurity regime and bio-secure plant supply chain, which the government says will safeguard food security and help mitigate the effects of climate change.

Genetically engineered food does not need to be labelled in supermarkets because the science is simply speeding up the natural process, the farming minister has said.

Mark Spencer told farmers that Britain needed to stay “at the forefront” of genetically engineered (GE) crops, which he said would have a “huge positive impact” on food security. Asked whether such products should be labelled once they went from field trials to products on shelves, he said “we’re not going to go down that route”.

Spencer said: “You end up in a position, if you’re not careful, with food labels being bigger than the products themselves, because of all the data on calories and ingredients. The most important thing is to make sure that that is regulated and it’s safe for consumers. Actually, what we’re doing is just speeding up the process of natural breeding.”

Food inflation has reached a new high of 13.3 percent this past month, as the price of basics such as eggs and dairy products soared.

Food inflation accelerated strongly in December to a new record, up from 12.4% in November, the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) index shows. This was the highest monthly rate since the BRC began collecting data in 2005.

The increase was caused by the high cost of fertiliser, animal feed and energy due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the BRC explained. Helen Dickinson, the body's chief executive, said that inflation "shows no immediate signs of waning".

Emissions from soil of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide can be drastically reduced just by adding carbon-rich manure, new research shows. Doing so essentially ‘locks-in’ nitrogen as it is no longer turned into as much nitrous oxide gas by microbes such as fungi and bacteria.

Nitrous oxide is roughly 300 times more potent that CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and fertilised soils are its major source. The gas also contributes to ozone depletion, and human-induced emissions of the gas have increased worldwide by 30% over the last forty years - mainly through an increased use of chemical fertilisers.

According to this latest Rothamsted-led study, arable soils receiving such inorganic fertilisers were found to retain only half the amount of nitrogen compared to soils receiving farmyard manure, with the losses mainly in the form of nitrous oxide gas.