Farming UK reports that a University of Surrey study, published in Food and Energy Security, found that vertical farms, despite high yields and water savings, produce more carbon emissions than conventional lettuce growing.

Farmers Guardian reports that UFU deputy president Glenn Cuddy has stressed the need for trusted, independent science to shape Northern Ireland’s farming future. Speaking at AFBI’s strategy launch, he highlighted soil health, plant and animal disease threats, and called for robust, locally relevant research to guide sustainable agricultural policy and practice.

Farmers Guardian reports that M&S has called on Government to support British farmers through legally binding food security targets. Launching its ‘Plan A for Farming’, the retailer urged action to boost UK-grown and reared produce, aligning with the principle that “food security is national security.”

Farmers Weekly reports that a new study from the think-tank Science for Sustainable Agriculture (SSA) warns that UK food self-sufficiency could decline sharply by 2050, with up to 23% of farmland lost to housing, energy, and environmental uses. Using AI forecasting, it highlights an urgent need to rebalance land, food, and environmental priorities.

Two new 'Dragons Den-style' competitions will channel £12.6m into UK agri-tech, backing ideas to cut costs, reduce labour pressures and improve animal health.

The government funding will be delivered through two new Farming Innovation Programme competitions, described as a “Dragons Den for farming”.

Run in partnership with Innovate UK, the scheme builds on earlier projects that developed robotic strawberry pickers and early-warning health systems for cattle.

Britain’s first genetically-edited (GE) foods will be on supermarket shelves in the new year as a result of Brexit freedoms.

Crops which have been genetically edited to be tastier, longer-lasting and healthier will now be legally sold in England for the first time under the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act 2023.

University scientists and private companies have created products such as bread with less cancer-causing chemicals, longer-lasting strawberries and bananas, sweeter tasting lettuce and disease-resistant potatoes.

Quality Meat Scotland is backing a major study into how smarter breeding can slash greenhouse gas emissions while boosting efficiency on Britain’s farms.

QMS is working with the Agri-Food for Net Zero (AFN) Network on a new project exploring how genetics can help the red meat sector cut emissions while improving efficiency and animal welfare.

The Breeding Better Beef and Sheep study, led by Kat Watson at the Royal Agricultural University, is a one-year collaboration between farmers, researchers and industry bodies.

Aberystwyth University scientists are developing new artificial intelligence tools that automatically measures plant seed and seed pods in order to breed better crop varieties.

Traditional ways of recording the traits of a plants’ fruit, such as their shape and size, are very labour-intensive, time-consuming, and prone to human error.

Researchers have addressed the challenge with a new AI powered tool that analyses images to recognise seed pods and measure them with high accuracy.

US President Donald Trump has told farmers that he will no longer support solar projects being built on prime agricultural land in a bid to strengthen the nation's food security and to prioritise food production.

On Monday (August 18), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that it will no longer fund taxpayer dollars on solar panels taking land away from growing crops and rearing livestock.

Additionally, USDA said it will block solar projects which use panels manufactured by 'foreign adversaries' in order to protect fertile farmland.

Scientists have developed a honeybee "superfood" that could protect the animals against the threats of climate change and habitat loss. Bee colonies that ate the supplement during trials had up to 15 times more baby bees that grew to adulthood.

Honeybees are a vital part of food production and contribute to pollinating 70% of leading global crops.

"This technological breakthrough provides all the nutrients bees need to survive, meaning we can continue to feed them even when there's not enough pollen," senior author Professor Geraldine Wright at the University of Oxford told BBC News.

In the first-ever UK trial, pod sealant has been successfully applied to a winter bean crop using a drone ahead of harvest.

Pod sealants are typically applied to crops prior to desiccation to reduce shattering of bean pods which become dry and brittle in the run up to harvest.

For millennia, developing resilient crops relied on pollination by nature or humans—making the process long and often costly.

Now, scientists from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reimagined the pollination process by developing a new system that uses gene editing to create flowers that can be easily pollinated by AI-controlled robots working round the clock.