Last year was the UK's second warmest on record, according to provisional data from the Met Office. This puts it just behind 2022, which recorded an average temperature of only 0.06C higher.

For both Wales and Northern Ireland, 2023 was their hottest year on record.

The national weather service said climate change has made the high temperatures "significantly more likely".

The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has recently registered a novel pesticide technology for potato crops. This technology involves the use of a biopesticide product called Ledprona, which contains a new active ingredient known as double-stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA). Ledprona utilizes a natural mechanism called RNA interference (RNAi), which is used by plants and animals to protect against disease.

The main target pest for Ledprona is the Colorado potato beetle (CPB), which is a major threat to potato crops in several states across the United States. The use of Ledprona helps to control CPB by “silencing” the gene responsible for producing a protein essential for the pest’s survival. Importantly, Ledprona does not result in the creation of genetically modified organisms.

The registration of this novel pesticide technology is significant because it offers an alternative to chemical-based pesticides that may pose higher risks to human health or the environment.

Food shortages are “alarmingly likely” in 2024 as climate change, transportation issues and global conflicts continue to affect supplies, a food security expert has said.

New checks will also be introduced on goods coming into the UK from the EU at the end of January, under the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM), further impacting food imports.

Professor Chris Elliott, of Queen’s University Belfast, said that fruit and vegetables would be particularly affected. It follows shortages of eggs and oil throughout 2023, with supermarkets forced to ration tomatoes and cucumbers due to poor weather in southern Europe in February.

China is leading the way on using drones to spray arable crops, and the presence of Chinese drone giant DJI’s agriculture division at the Agritechnica event in Hanover showed it is keen to flex its muscle in a market where it sees huge potential.

Up to now, Europe has lagged behind the US and China, but the sight of drones spraying arable crops may be getting closer, with signs that Europe is opening up regulation to permit their use.

DJI Agriculture has so far sold about 200,000 drones for spraying, 80% of which are in China.

From baguettes to beer, the world’s leading food and drinks makers are rushing to reduce their carbon footprint by tackling one of the hidden culprits of emissions in their value chains: fertilisers.

Ahead of disclosure rules for greenhouse emissions throughout their supply chains enacted next year, companies including PepsiCo, Heineken and Nestlé have turned to green fertiliser start-ups to help tackle emission levels.

Crop nutrients underpin production of half the world’s food but contribute significant CO₂ emissions at the same time. Fertilisers used for agricultural ingredients account for about 15 per cent of total emissions from beer supply chains and 35-40 per cent for bread, according to industry experts.

A group of scientists has challenged the claims of organic certification body Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G) that trebling the area farmed organically will deliver significant climate change and biodiversity benefits.

The claims are contained in a new report, Growing organic – a multifunctional component of English land use policy, which says a targeted shift towards organic farming can help the government meet its climate change and biodiversity goals.

But pro-science think-tank Science for Sustainable Agriculture has challenged these claims. “The scientific evidence increasingly indicates that optimising food production on as small a land area as possible is the most sustainable way to feed a growing population, while leaving space for nature and carbon sequestration,” said a spokesman.

EU agriculture ministers have failed to find a position on EU plans to relax rules on new genomic techniques (NGTs) as thorny issues like coexistence with organic farming and patentability continue to split European countries.

In July, the European Commission proposed to loosen the rules on certain NGTs, or gene editing – a number of new scientific methods used to alter genomes with the aim of genetically engineering certain traits into plants.

The Spanish EU Council Presidency – who will be succeeded by Belgium on 1 January – aimed to seal a deal on the Council’s position on the file during a meeting on Monday (11 December) – but their offering failed to reach the necessary majority for a general approach on NGTs.

A leading environmental advisor has urged governments to ‘follow the science' when it comes to methane emissions and to reject the ‘lazy lobbying' of green ‘extremism' ahead of the food and agriculture day at this year's COP28.

Fifth-generation farmer, researcher and AHDB policy expert Professor John Gilliland said it was time to end ‘soundbite media' and for agricultural policy to focus on evidence-based methane metrics.

"There is a lot of confusion surrounding Net Zero," Professor Gilliand said. "It is about getting businesses down to Net Zero yes, by reducing emissions, but also building carbon stocks, displacing fossil fuels with renewables and minimising waste. It is Net not Gross Zero. If you want Gross Zero that is no animals and no humans. We have to move away from the extremism."

The Environmental Audit Committee has argued the Government should 'not squander' its opportunity to enshrine food security as a 'central tenet' of the eagerly awaited land use framework.

The framework was intended to set out the Government's plans for agriculture, the environment and net zero, helping to guide farmers on how they can contribute towards the UK's environmental and nature goals.

The Committee called for the Government to prioritise publishing its plans, which the Government has said would be released later this year. The Committee argued the framework must set out how land will balance producing food in a sustainable way that supports a resilient food system, while also responding to environmental change.

Conservative MP Julian Sturdy, chair for the APPG on Science and Technology in Agriculture, has called for Defra to publish material on the impact of its Environmental Land Management (ELM) and Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) policies, to see evidence that their strategies are maintaining national food production levels.

He wrote in an article for Science for Sustainable Agriculture how the question he tabled for Parliament reiterates understanding the reasoning and impact behind their scheme, such as paying farmers not to use approved insecticides and limiting fertiliser use to below optimum productivity levels.

“I am concerned that the policy emphasis on lower-yield farming practices such as these will inevitably take its toll on our domestic food production capacity, and increase our dependence on imports,” he said.