The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Europe reaps better harvest than expected
Despite a summer of heatwaves and torrential rain in various parts of the Continent, the European Commission says these were isolated enough to have no impact on yields.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) that monitors yields says the EU remains on course for an aboveaverage harvest.
The UK is now excluded from these calculations.
While rain delayed the harvesting of some winter crops it did not affect the outcome. The harvest is estimated at 5.65 tonnes/ hectare against a July forecast of 5.67. This is 6% up on the five-year average.
Wheat yields are forecast at 5.75 tonnes and barley at 4.9 tonnes. Potato yields are also up 5.5% on the fiveyear average at 34.8 tonnes.
The JRC report says pastures in some southern European countries and Scandinavia were hit by drought but that elsewhere they performed well.
As the UK prepares to accelerate debate about the future of gene editing in agriculture, the commission has approved 10 new GM maize crops for use as food.
But because of complex voting procedures in the EU the odds are against this scientific advice ever being turned into crops.
For that to happen the approvals would have to secure a qualified majority from member states and that has proved impossible for years. Despite pressure there are no signs of this stalemate changing.
The UK Government wants to explore ways to follow the rest of the world, rather than the EU. It is unlikely to venture as far as agreeing to GM crops but is likely to push gene editing.
With this the genome of a species is altered while with traditional GM other species are introduced into the genome.
Lastly, the commission has agreed some relaxation of its blanket ban on animal proteins in livestock feeds.
These restrictions were imposed at the height of the BSE crisis.
It has agreed protein derived from insects and pigs can be used in poultry feeds and poultry-derived protein may be allowed in pig feeds.
There will be strict regulations to stop cross contamination to cattle feeds. The last case of BSE detected in the EU was in 2016. This policy change has been welcomed as a step on the road to sciencebased decision making.