The cost of living crisis has plunged millions of families into food poverty for the first time, according to shocking new figures from the UK’s biggest redistribution charity.

A survey of 9,500 charities receiving food from FareShare, which gets surplus from supermarkets and suppliers, found 90% had seen a rise in demand for their services, with almost 30% seeing it double.

Meanwhile, more than 70% of charities attributed the surge in need to people accessing their support for the first time, despite 51% of those being fully employed.

The James Hutton Institute has been awarded funding from the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) to undertake a feasibility study for a green-hydrogen-powered farming community around its Glensaugh farm.

The study is the initial phase of the HydroGlen project, which seeks to transform the pioneering Aberdeenshire research facility into an energy-efficient, carbon-neutral hub powered entirely by hydrogen and capable of supplying energy to the wider local community.

The initiative hopes to provide a demonstrator for communities across Scotland about a new means of being energy-independent or even fuel producers themselves, offering an exciting, transformative model for contributing to Scotland’s net-zero ambitions.

Climate change is severely impacting people's health around the world, a report by a leading medical publication has found.

The Lancet Countdown report says the world's continued reliance on fossil fuels increases the risk of food insecurity, infectious disease and heat-related illness.

UN Secretary General António Guterres responded that global leaders must match action to the size of the problem.

UK food prices are rising at their fastest rate in 42 years as the cost-of-living crisis continues to squeeze household budgets. Food costs jumped 14.6% in the year to September - the biggest rise since 1980 - with bread, cereal, meat and dairy prices all climbing.

It comes as people also struggle with higher energy and transport costs. Overall inflation - the rate at which UK prices rise - surged to 10.1% last month and is expected to climb further.

Only 3% of the land in England and 8% of the sea is effectively protected for nature, according to a new report. The government has committed to protecting at least 30% of land and sea by 2030, as part of a global initiative to slow the destruction of the natural world and catastrophic loss of species.

However the study by Wildlife and Countryside Link says that in England "little progress" had been made. The government said it was committed to meeting the 2030 target.

A new method of analysing bone density in live hens could help farmers select the optimum birds with which to breed to improve animal welfare, UK researchers say.

Scientists at the Roslin Institute have developed a digital X-ray procedure that takes around 45 seconds to conduct.

The institute, based in Edinburgh, said this method was practical for hens and poultry workers while delivering reliable, reproducible results.

A national land use framework is the “single most important” step the government can take to drive decision-making over land use for food and energy production, nature and climate action, according to the government’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby.

The UK government committed to creating a 2023 Land Use Framework for England in its Food Strategy document, published in June.

This will aim to ensure net-zero and biodiversity targets are met and help farmers adapt to a changing climate while allowing them to continue to produce high-quality, affordable food to support healthier diets.

Future funding certainty is critical to UK livestock farmers as they consider increased investment in technologies that have the potential to improve productivity and boost growth, a think-tank has warned.

Precision farming tools, such as electronic ID tags, monitoring collars and farm management apps, could help close the agricultural productivity gap between the UK and countries like Australia and the US.

Agricultural productivity is a focus for the government’s growth plan, with ministers promising imminent action to make farmers more efficient. Yet in new research based on interviews with UK farmers, the Social Market Foundation (SMF) found that many are holding off on spending money to modernise their operations due to uncertainty over new post-Brexit funding streams.

A new Defra-funded project is now underway to develop an automated service for farmers to provide 365-day surveillance of their pigs.

The FarmSense project, scheduled to run until 2024, aims to improve and monitor pig welfare by providing an automated surveillance service with a unique disease detection system.

Led by Innovent Technology and costing £785,000, the project produces daily reports and alerts on pig performance and behaviour, enabling farmers to monitor remotely.

Preliminary results from Europe’s first field trials of gene-edited (GE) wheat have indicated there’s no yield or other agronomic penalty from the precision-breeding technique.

This means that precise edits can now be made to a wheat genome to improve its performance and specific grain qualities that currently take many years to change using conventional breeding techniques.

“This has been the first real test of the technology in wheat in the field in Europe, and it’s a very significant finding,” notes Nigel Halford, whose team at Rothamsted Research carried out the landmark trials.

Crops are increasingly being eaten by insects because of manmade climate change, according to new research. The phenomenon is occurring despite declining populations of caterpillars, beetles, grasshoppers and other critters.

Plants are around a quarter more likely to be damaged than specimens collected just over a century ago. Burning of fossil fuels, urbanisation and the introduction of invasive species are being blamed.

The shock finding is based on an analysis of leaves dating back 67 million years – just before the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It has implications for feeding the world. The global population will reach nearly 10 billion by 2050.

Three UK conservation groups say all options are on the table as they challenge what they describe as a government U-turn on protecting nature. The National Trust, RSPB and Wildlife Trusts said they could urge millions of members to take to the streets in demonstrations.

The groups' leaders said new government policy was an "attack on nature".

The government said it was improving regulations and wildlife laws "in line with our ambitious vision". "A strong environment and a strong economy go hand-in-hand," a government spokesperson said.