Potatoes with as much vitamin C as a lemon could be grown and sold in England within five years using “game-changing” gene-editing technology, scientists have predicted.

Researchers at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee have successfully “doubled” the amount of vitamin C in a new strain of potato by snipping out sections of its DNA.

Lemons and oranges contain approximately 53mg of vitamin C per 100g. But Prof Derek Stewart, director of The Advanced Plant Growth Centre at the institute, told The Telegraph his team had managed to increase levels in a potato to around 40mg.

Argentina's Bioceres Crop Solutions plans to carry out field tests of its genetically modified drought resistant wheat in Australia and seek planting approvals next year, Chief Executive Federico Trucco told Reuters.

The company is counting on consumers warming to eating wheat that has been genetically modified (GMO), as food prices soar due to the Ukraine war and more extreme weather patterns increase the risk of global famines.

Trucco called Russia's invasion of major wheat producer Ukraine a "reality check" for global food supplies, helping make the case for GMO wheat that has faced push-back from farmers and consumers. Bioceres is leading the push to develop it.

The UK has signed up to a US-launched global coalition which aims to accelerate the transition to more a sustainable food system.

The UK has joined the Sustainable Productivity Growth Coalition (SPG), a body with an aim to improve agricultural productivity in an environmentally sustainable way.

The coalition, launched last year by the US at the UN's Food Systems Summit, is made up of countries, academic and research organisations and trade bodies.

The UK pig sector reduced antibiotic use by 17% in 2021 despite farmers experiencing an extremely challenging year, new figures show. It brings the total reduction since 2015 to 69%, according to data collected using the electronic medicine book (eMB), which represent 95% of UK pigs slaughtered.

Antibiotic use in 2021 stood at 87mg/PCU, compared with 105mg/PCU in 2020. The fall was possible despite issues such as the on-farm pig backlog and rising costs. The result is also a step towards meeting the second set of targets developed by the RUMA Targets Task Force, of a 30% reduction in total antibiotic use by the end of 2024, based on data from 2020.

Intensive livestock farming could, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, help reduce the risk of future pandemics, according to a team of scientists.

The researchers, from the universities of Cambridge and Leeds, said that switching to more extensive production systems, such as ‘free-range’, could actually increase the risk.

In a new paper, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, they explained that this was partly because extensive farms required much more land to meet demand for meat, eggs and dairy. This, in turn, could drive habitat loss and disturb more wildlife, potentially including species that could host the next pandemic virus.

UK grocery price inflation is now at its highest level since April 2009, new figures from data company Kantar show.

Consumers are seeing the highest rises in food bills in 13 years as the cost of living crisis continues to impact households.

According to Kantar's latest data, grocery inflation surged to 8.3% over the past month - up from 7% a month earlier.

Scientists from eight leading UK laboratories are joining forces to develop new ways to fight bird flu. The consortium has been given £1.5m to develop strategies to tackle recent outbreaks of the H5N1 strain causing severe illness and death in birds.

This version of bird flu has hit the poultry industry hard, with culls and indoor housing measures enforced. While the risk to humans is low, in 2021, there was a confirmed human case of the strain in South West England.

There have now been more than 120 outbreaks in farmed poultry and wild bird populations. This winter's outbreak of avian flu is the largest and longest ever in the UK.

ALISTER Jack is to call on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee to probe the Scottish Government’s rejection of new gene-editing legislation.

Last week, environment secretary Màiri McAllan said Scotland would not adopt the reforms to regulations proposed in the UK government’s proposed Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill.

Mr Jack, the Secretary of State for Scotland and George Eustice, the Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, food and rural affairs, had asked the minister to consider backing the new law so that the relatively new technology could be used on both sides of the border. They said the technology could help "tackle the challenges of our age.”

A leading scientific adviser has warned that the Scottish government is out of kilter with scientists in resisting the introduction of gene edited food. Professor Anne Glover, a former chief scientific adviser to the devolved administration, intervened after the SNP/Green government rejected calls to allow disease-resistant gene edited crops, which could help to avoid food shortages.

While the UK government and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) support the idea, which could also lead to tomatoes with boosted levels of vitamin D appearing in shops, the Scottish government argues that it could hinder exports to Europe.

The British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB) has warned the UK Government’s gene editing legislation will ‘fail to address food security goals’ as currently drafted.

In a briefing sent to MPs in advance of the Bill’s second reading in the House of Commons, the BSPB said plant breeders and scientists were concerned that a provision allowing Ministers to impose new traceability and food and feed safety risk assessments would ‘add unnecessary requirements and costs’ to the use of gene editing techniques.

The group went on to describe the ‘GM-style regulatory hurdles’, which do not apply to conventionally bred crop varieties, as ‘not scientifically justified’. It raised concerns that their introduction could adversely affect plans for investment in the UK and reduce access to the environmental and economic benefits gene editing can deliver.

Agricultural science funding is set to become a casualty of the rapidly escalating row over the UK Government’s plans to unliterally change the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The European Union sees the proposals, announced on Monday (June 13) by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, as breaking an internationally recognised treaty and is certain to retaliate. A trade war is one possible outcome, although both sides are reluctant to embark on such a course of action during a cost of living crisis.

A more immediate measure may well be denying the UK access to the next round of the flagship Horizon Europe Programme, with the EU’s ambassador to London, Joao Vale de Almeida, already saying he ‘regretted’ that researchers would be ‘collateral damage’ in the dispute.

Price increases from war in Ukraine and rising temperatures mean innovation more necessary than ever, says US agriculture head Thomas Vilsack

A joint UAE-US programme to modernise agriculture will focus on gene editing and protective seed coatings to help farmers boost yields and overcome threats from climate change, a top US official said on Thursday.

US Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack said the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate) project, being carried out in partnership with the UAE, would help farmers grow more and overcome price increases sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.