NFUS vice-president Martin Kennedy has highlighted the drastic fall in air pollution in UK cities as a result of Covid-19 lockdown measures has confirmed agriculture as ‘part of the solution’ to mitigating climate change.

According to data collected by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), a 50-60 per cent reduction in the use of transport during the crisis has resulted in a major drop in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM2.5)

With emissions from agriculture accounting for just 10 per cent of the UK’s GHG emissions, Mr Kennedy said the data was useful in highlighting how agriculture had been unfairly demonised for its contribution to climate change.

A High-Performance Computing (HPC) platform that will increase the pace of crop science and climate change research has been established by six leading UK research organisations.

The new HPC cluster is dedicated to the study of crop genetic diversity. It will enable crop researchers to share data, develop new methods of analysis and deliver training, and act as the basis for establishing new collaborative programmes of innovative science.

Funded by BBSRC, and with support from the Scottish Government, the project has been led by the crop research organisation NIAB, in partnership with the James Hutton Institute, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Scotland’s Rural College, the Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh and the Natural History Museum.

Europe is heating faster than the global average as new data indicates that last year was the warmest on record.

While globally the year was the second warmest, a series of heatwaves helped push the region to a new high mark.

Over the past five years, global temperatures were, on average, just over 1C warmer than at the end of the 19th century. In Europe, in the same period, temperatures were almost 2C warmer.

Prehistoric farmers located in what is now Britain pioneered dairy farming around 7,000 years ago, archaeologists say.

Molecular remains of food left in pottery used by Europe's first farmers was analysed by scientists from the University of York.

They report evidence of dairy products in 80% of the pottery fragments from the Atlantic coast of what is now Britain.

A new camera that will detect crop disease quickly and at a significantly lower cost has been developed by British researchers.

The technology, developed by scientists at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), could potentially save farmers worldwide thousands of pounds in lost produce, while increasing crop yields.

The National Food Strategy will have a renewed focus on food security because of the issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic, its lead Henry Dimbleby has said. But he did raise concerns that with the pandemic so fresh in people’s minds, policy makers could make the mistake of ‘preparing again for this war, instead of a future war’.

“What we see here is a crisis where local areas are systematically shut down, but harvests have been good, so food has continued to move around to the places where it has been required,” he said. “However, that looks very different from a climate crisis. A simultaneous harvest failure in Russia and China where you had a massive shortage of supply would be very different from this. This crisis is going to help in that people will be able to think more deeply about these big, existential risks, but we are going to have to ensure people realise this is not the only possible crisis.”

A new National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE) by Newcastle University and partners is hoped to foster innovation, resilience and enterprise among rural firms through research and knowledge exchange.

Led by experts from Newcastle, Warwick, Gloucestershire and the Royal Agricultural Universities, the centre will launch in September 2020 and has been awarded £3.8 million by Research England.

Centre director, Jeremy Phillipson, professor of rural development at Newcastle University, said ‘a thriving rural economy is crucial to the future prosperity, well-being and resilience of communities across the UK’.

The European Union is aiming to cut pesticide use by 50 percent by 2030 as part of a new environmentally-friendlier 'farm to fork' strategy.

The European Commission presented the food and farming plans on Wednesday (20 May) as part of the bloc's wider European Green Deal policy.

The strategy set out targets to transform the EU's food system, including a target to reach 25% of agricultural land under organic farming by 2030. The Commission wants to reduce the use of fertilisers by at least 20%, and slash the sales of antimicrobials used for farmed animals by half.

A cross-party group of MPs and Lords have called for the government to boost the British farming industry by ditching EU rules which block the access to precision breeding tools. Amendments to the Agriculture Bill have been put forward which would provide new powers for ministers to make changes to the UK Environmental Protection Act.

Ministers are seeking to change the EU definition of GMO in the Act for a definition compatible with the Cartagena Protocol – to which the UK is a signatory. The move would give the UK's scientists, farmers, plant breeders and animal breeders the same access to new gene editing technologies as countries outside the EU have.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Science and Technology in Agriculture, chaired by MP Julian Sturdy, has now written to Defra Secretary George Eustice. The APPG has urged the government to introduce the enabling amendment during the Lords stages of the Agriculture Bill.

The UK National Farmers Union (NFU) has backed calls made by a cross-party group for the new Agriculture Bill to allow British farmers access to gene-editing technology post-Brexit.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on science and technology in agriculture, chaired by MP Julian Sturdy, wrote to George Eustice, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, earlier this month urging the government to introduce an enabling amendment during the Lords stages of the Bill in order to boost the genetic innovation after Brexit.

The proposed amendment would provide new powers for ministers to consult on and, where deemed appropriate, make alterations to the UK Environmental Protection Act. This could then give Britain’s scientists, farmers, plant breeders and animal breeders access to new gene-editing technologies.

The EU has promised to learn lessons from the coronavirus pandemic by developing a new food security contingency plan.

The plan, designed to ensure a continued supply of safe, affordable and nutritious food during crises, will be put together by the Commission alongside a broader Farm to Fork Strategy.

The Farm to Fork Strategy aims to make food systems fairer, healthier and more environmentally friendly, and is part of the European Green Deal which sets out a roadmap to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

Shorter food supply chains could make the UK more resilient in the face of pandemics and climate change, a new report by Soil Association says.

With Covid-19 exposing cracks in the UK food system, the charity said sustainable sourcing would increase resilience as well as boost the environment.

It said government has 'key roles' to play in incentivising regional and more sustainable production through redirecting the £2bn spent annually on public sector food.