Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what research her Department has conducted into the use of climate-resilient crops.

Defra’s crop Genetic Improvement Networks (GINs) provide research to develop more productive, sustainable, and resilient crop varieties. These R&D networks have successfully identified genetic traits that have improved crop resilience to climate change, and we are working with breeders to incorporate these into elite crop varieties. The GINs work in partnership with the Met Office, using climate projections to better target crop breeding. Research on crop resilience will accelerate as our Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act unlocks further opportunities.

Through Defra’s £270 million pound Farming Innovation Programme, we recently awarded £11.69m in a ‘climate smart’ farming themed competition to projects investigating novel approaches to growing and managing crops.