The UK should increase visas for seasonal workers as part of a drive to cultivate as much food as possible domestically, a former chief of MI5 has said.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who led the domestic intelligence service from 2002 to 2007, said in a lecture that security of food supplies would fit within the government’s own definition of national security. She said she believed this meant strengthening domestic supply.

“We need to acknowledge that we should produce as much of our own food as we can, with due regard to sustainability, and be able to export what we can,” the former director-general of the Security Service told members of the National Farmers’ Union.

A collaboration project in the malting barley industry aims to use regenerative agricultural techniques to cut crop carbon emissions by half in just five years.

Set up by global beverage company Suntory, malt supplier Muntons, consultancy firm Future Food Solutions and a group of farmers lead by Dewing Grain, the project will explore how barley can be grown in a more sustainable way to reduce emissions and protect watersources.

Starting from the 2022 autumn drilling campaign, the trial will see a group of 16 Norfolk farmers set a baseline for all crop-related emissions across a 160ha area. Data will be collected to design a programme that seeks to reduce emissions, enhance soil health and protect water, while maintaining crop performance and grain quality.

For the first time, farmers in the Philippines have cultivated Golden Rice on a larger scale and harvested almost 70 tonnes of grains this October.This nearly never-ending story began at ETH Zurich.

This autumn will probably go down in agrarian history. In October, farmers in the Philippine Province of Antique harvested a substantial amount of beta-carotene-enriched Golden Rice for the first time – namely a total of 67 tonnes from 17 fields. The dried and polished grains are going to be distributed to households with pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers or preschool children who are at risk of diseases caused by vitamin A deficiency.

ETH Professor Emeritus Ingo Potrykus, the father and inventor of Golden Rice, sees its cultivation in the Philippines as a breakthrough: “Finally, the step towards practical utilisation has been taken. After decades during which genetic engineering has been used exclusively for commercial agriculture, the first instance of a humanitarian project using it to solve a major health issue is now becoming a reality.”

Could the key to feeding the world with a changing climate be hiding in a 300-year-old museum collection? That's one of the hopes of scientists combing through 12,000 specimens of wheat and its relatives held in the Natural History Museum's archives.

The most promising samples are having their genomes sequenced in a bid to identify the genetic secrets of hardier wheat varieties. Climate change and pests and diseases are putting the crop under pressure.

An action plan to boost British farming's productivity has been launched in the House of Lords, with the report criticising that science is 'often slow' to be applied at the farm level.

The Application of Science report puts forward recommendations needed to deliver science more quickly to tackle food security, net zero and biodiversity challenges.

One of the key insights from the report is that the path from scientific discovery to on-farm application in the UK is 'fragmented'. Unlike France, Germany, US and most other industrialised countries, the UK does not have a public or private entity clearly responsible for application of science in agriculture.

Sales of antibiotics used for animal use have almost halved between 2011-2021, according to a new report issued by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), putting the EU on track to attain its ambitions, but with a warning that the sector should not become complacent.

The agency’s annual report on the European surveillance of veterinary antimicrobial consumption (ESVAC) was released on Friday (18 November) and covers a total of 31 European countries, including 29 EU/EEA countries.

It found that, since 2011, European countries have “substantially reduced” sales of veterinary antibiotics in animals. For the 25 countries that provided continuous data sets, overall sales of veterinary antibiotics decreased by 47% between 2011-2021 – the lowest value ever reported.

A GROUP of scientists from around the world have concluded that the war being waged against meat is ‘simplistic and reductionist’.

The researchers gathered in Dublin recently to examine the claims regularly levelled against meat and livestock, focusing on what the science says.

They warned removing livestock and meat from landscapes and human diets would lead to potentially disastrous outcomes for both.

Leading organisations and individuals across the scientific, breeding, farming, veterinary and input supply sectors have signed an open statement of support for the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill currently going through Parliament, and for the potential role of new breeding technologies such as gene editing in delivering more sustainable, high-welfare UK livestock research and production.

Science misinformation about genetically modified crops and foods had a potential global readership of over a quarter of a billion people, according to a new study published by the Alliance for Science, which combats anti-science misinformation on topics like climate, vaccines and GMOs.

The study assessed top English-language media from around the world, with stories published over a two-year period between January 2019 and January 2021. Articles were assessed for misinformation, defined as statements that disagreed with the scientific consensus on the safety of genetic engineering.

Overall, 9% (47) of the 535 relevant articles containing 'GMO'-related keywords contained misinformation. This false information was considered likely to have had a potential reach of 256 million people. The problem is particularly acute in Africa, where one-fifth of media coverage of genetically modified foods contained misinformation. The corresponding figures for North America and Europe were 5% and 7%, respectively.

Wheat grown indoors using no soil or pesticides and less water can yield 117t/ha/year, vertical farming company Infarm has said. Following successful first trials, the company said the high-yielding potential of producing the crop in this way was a major breakthrough for climate-resilient farming and ensuring food security.

With average yields for wheat grown in fields significantly lower than the projected figures for the indoor-grown crop, Infarm said the method could help meet food needs for the world’s growing population, which is set to hit eight billion next week.

Guy Galonska, co-founder of Infarm, said: “Our results are significant when compared with the average yield of outdoor wheat production, which is about 4.5 tonnes per hectare per year and heavily dependent on weather and seasons.

The European Commission's proposal to extend the December 2022 expiry date on the current active substance approval for glyphosate has been blocked by several member states.

Delays to the bloc's renewal assessment process means the approval will not be completed before the expiry date, which is on 15 December 2022.

The European Commission proposed to extend this expiry date by one year – a common regulatory practice. When put to the vote, this extension was backed by the majority of member states, but opposition by Luxembourg, Malta and Croatia, and the abstention of France, Germany, and Slovenia effectively blocked it.

A new £1.5 million crop research centre has opened which will see researchers use gene-editing technology to improve the resilience and sustainability of crops.

Opening at the University of Warwick, the Elizabeth Creak Horticultural Technology Centre (ECHTC) will use the technique to improve UK crop production.

According to the university, the centre seeks to address issues relating to disease resistance, crop yields, adaptability to climate change and nutritional value in horticultural plants.