Research News

Despite the cost-of-living crisis still impacting household finances, recent AHDB research has uncovered that consumers are willing to treat themselves in-home as a cheaper alternative to eating out, which presents an opportunity for some premium meat products.

A team of Royal Agricultural University (RAU) researchers looking to understand the risks and opportunities of lab-grown meat is offering farmers a funded opportunity to share their views on how the controversial technology might impact UK agriculture.

With the frequency of extreme weather events on the rise, there is an increasing need for agriculture to build resilience against climate change, which has been the focus of research carried out by ADAS and the Met Office Hadley Centre to identify ways farmers can adapt their practices to the changing climate.

A recent Irish study argues women in the farm sector have played a key role in the growth of agrotiurism by being more open to farm diversification and going beyond the “productivist” type of thinking in agriculture.

Findings from a three-year nitrogen (N) efficiency trial have been labelled as a ‘potential game changer’ for growers looking to enhance farm sustainability and variety performance while reducing the overall cost of N inputs.

Farmers and researchers at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2023 discussed various practical and cost-effective ways of increasing fertility and nutrient availability in the soil while reducing or eliminating the need for artificial fertilisers.

The results of an ongoing Innovative Farmers field lab indicate that diverse winter grazing crops offer major benefits to soil health and biodiversity, as well as the potential to cut input costs while farming in harmony with nature.

With edible insects being hailed as a sustainable source of high protein food, researchers at Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) have been awarded more than £10k to develop a strategy for using them in animal feed.

For the last 18 years the FBS has been undertaken independently by Rural Business Research (RBR). However, change is afoot with the handover of the contract to Promar International. In this moment it feels important to reflect on the work that precedes the next chapter and the survey’s importance to agriculture’s past, present, and future.

A recent study published by an independent think tank says farmers are open to adopting new technologies but are reluctant to invest due to a lack of confidence in policy frameworks, funding opportunities, and the future of farming in general.

The agricultural sector has seen rapid innovation in recent years due to the need to produce more food on less land, with technologies such as smart crops, agricultural drones, and smart greenhouses on the rise, according to GlobalData’s latest report.

Ensuring plant breeding contributes to a more sustainable future for UK agriculture and exploring how the industry can collaborate to address this challenge, is to be explored at a knowledge exchange event next month.