The UN has called for a 'transformation' of agriculture to make it more resilient to shocks amid fears the Ukraine war could soon cause a global food crisis. The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Qu Dongyu, made the urgent call at a UN meeting in New York on Wednesday (18 May).

Together, Russia and Ukraine produce 30 percent of the global wheat supply, and Ukraine in particular is seen as the world's bread basket. But since the start of Russia's invasion in February, exports have collapsed and prices have surged. This led India to recently ban its own wheat exports.

This crisis, along with the pandemic and the effects of climate change, have increased people’s vulnerability and pushed hundreds of millions of more people to the brink of hunger, Mr Dongyu said.

The weight of modern combine harvesters, tractors and other farm machinery risks compacting the soil, leading to flooding and poor harvests, according to researchers in Sweden.

The researchers calculated that combine harvesters, when fully loaded, have ballooned in size from about 4,000kg in 1958 to around 36,000kg in 2020. The researchers think the growing weight of farm machinery poses a threat to agricultural productivity.

Their analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests combine harvesters could be damaging up to a fifth of the global land used to grow crops. Thomas Keller, professor of soil management at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, says machinery should be designed not to exceed a certain load.

Science agencies and farming organisations welcomed the announcement of measures to provide a more straightforward route to market for seeds and crops using advanced breeding technologies such as gene editing in the Queen’s Speech.

The announcement revealed that the UK Government would bring forward new primary legislation, ‘The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill’, to take certain precision breeding techniques out of the scope of restrictive GMO rules - where the resulting plants could have occurred naturally or through conventional breeding methods.

Following the recent introduction of rule changes to free up experimental field trials of gene edited crops, the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) said the announcement marked a further important step towards more science-based and proportionate regulation of technologies such as gene editing, giving a boost to prospects for UK plant science and the development of more sustainable farming systems.

Scottish farm leaders have renewed their plea for access to new technologies such as gene editing. It comes following confirmation in the Queen’s Speech that the UK Government will introduce new legislation – the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill – to unlock the potential of new farming technologies such as gene editing (GE).

The Scottish Government has long said it wants to maintain a GM-free crop status, however farming union NFU Scotland (NFUS) says farmers and crofters need access to GE technology to become more sustainable.

“New technologies, including the likes of gene editing can help positively address some of the big challenges Scottish agriculture faces, including how we respond to the climate emergency and address biodiversity loss,” said NFUS president Martin Kennedy.

An Australian led team of international researchers has discovered a gene in wheat that helps produce higher quality crops. The scientists say the discovery could lead to increasing protein in wheat by up to 25 per cent with the potential to help improve its nutritional and economic value.

The researchers from the University of Adelaide and the UK’s John Innes Centre have identified the genetic driver that improves the yield traits of wheat. Lead researcher Scott Boden from the University of Adelaide said the significant discovery follows revolutionary progress in wheat science over the past decade.

The scientists say it is the first known example where a forward-genetics screen of a mutant population has been used to identify a gene that controls reproductive development in wheat. “If you identify genes that control flower development and you modify them so that more flowers are produced, then you can increase the productivity or yield of the plant,” he told AAP. He said the research was partly driven by the need to increase food security for the increasing human population.

The world's largest economies have been called on to help combat food shortages as the Ukraine war squeezes supplies and pushes prices to record highs.

The head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the G7 nations, which includes the UK, must identify ways to make up for food gaps in global markets.

Russia and Ukraine are important players in global commodity markets, and the uncertainty surrounding the war has caused prices surges, particularly of wheat, maize and oilseeds, as well as fertilisers.

Defra has approved field trials of genetically modified barley that scientists say could reduce the need for synthetic fertilisers.

Food commodities are likely to become cheaper in the coming decade as productivity grows, but global targets on reducing hunger and emissions are unlikely to be met under current policies, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and the OECD said on Monday.

Agricultural commodity prices have surged since last year due to a boom in Chinese imports and tightening inventories, leading the FAO last month to forecast record costs in 2021 for food importers.

However, prices of most agricultural commodities should fall slightly in real terms in the decade ahead, reverting to a long-term trend of improving production meeting rising demand from a growing population, the FAO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a joint report.

Supermarket Tesco is putting pressure on the UK government to accelerate the use of insect protein in animal feed as a way of reducing the agri-food sector’s environmental footprint.

A new report, commissioned by Tesco and environment group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), estimates that using insect meal to feed fish and livestock could cut the UK’s future soy footprint by one-fifth.

It suggests total demand for insect meal from the UK’s pig, poultry and salmon sectors could reach 540,000t/year by 2050, potentially replacing 16,000t of fishmeal and 524,000t of soya – equivalent to about 150,000ha of land.

A committee of MPs has lambasted the UK government's approach to nature, saying it is failing to stem huge losses of plants and species. Their report says that the UK has the lowest remaining levels of biodiversity among the world's richer nations.

The MPs say the government spends far more on exploiting the natural environment than it does conserving it. They're calling for legally binding targets for nature similar to the UK's climate laws.

The UK public should be urged by the government to protect the climate by eating less meat and dairy produce, advisers say.

Cattle are a major source of planet-heating gases, but ministers fear a backlash if they ask people to cut down on steak. But the Climate Change Committee (CCC) says people should reduce meat-eating for their health, as well as for the planet.

It says the issue's one of many failings of a government which is delivering only a fifth of its pledges on climate change. People should be asked to eat 20% less meat and dairy produce by 2030, and 35% less by 2050, the CCC insists.

The prime minister has set out plans to cement the UK's place as a "science superpower". Boris Johnson announced how increases in the research budget would be spent.

He will chair a new National Science and Technology Council to provide "strategic direction" on how research is harnessed for the "public good". And Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser to the government, will lead a new Office for Science and Technology Strategy.