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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Scientists have made a gene breakthrough in the fight against weeds, allowing - for the first time - a chance to study the genetics responsible for herbicide resistance.

Since the invention of weed killers, farmers have been caught in a never-ending arms race with weeds – from the moment of first spraying weeds start to develop resistance to the chemicals – and year on year, the armoury is shrinking.

Now scientists have reported they have used plant viruses to switch weed genes off, or alternatively, ramp up the production of specific proteins by weeds in the laboratory.

Wearable sensors are being developed to help monitor the health of dairy cows with the aim of identifying the disease brucellosis at an earlier stage.

The 'fitbit' product is non-invasively placed on livestock monitoring daily activities 24/7, according to developer IceRobotics, a British agri-tech company.

Advanced processing of this information will help vets to monitor any changes in behaviour which could be early indicators for illness and allow them to shortlist livestock at an early stage.

A study comparing historic and modern wheat varieties grown side by side has shown an increase in dietary fibre and other benefits to human health.

This is contrary to concerns that the push for higher yields has made today’s wheat less “healthy” than older types.

The 39 wheats varieties, spanning a period of 230 years, were grown three years running at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire.

Rewarding British farmers for looking after their soil should take 'centre stage' in post-Brexit agricultural policy, a Royal Society report has said.

Farmers who focus on the quality and structure of their soil could help the United Kingdom meet its climate commitments.

The society's new Soil Structure and its Benefits report brings together evidence on the functions soils can perform.