“By 2050 the World’s population will have reached nine billion, 34% up on today,” Mark Buckingham from Monsanto’s corporate affairs department told delegates at the Cambridge Arable Technologies (CAT) winter conference. “So far the United Nation’s predictions on population growth have been robust with predictions made in 1963 for the year 2000 proving very accurate.

“At the same time farmers have a good record of meeting the increased need for food through the use of breeding techniques. These began with pedigree breeding through to hybridisation, high-throughput analytics, marker-assisted selection and now GM crops.”

Accusing anti-biotech groups of scare tactics, Mr Buckingham claimed there were excellent case studies highlighting the benefits of using GM crops, such as dramatic improvements in cotton production in India. Recent decisions to ban GM crops in France and Germany were political rather than scientifically based, he maintained.

Looking to the future, new developments meant that biotech crops could have a valuable place in sustainable crop production, he said. Monsanto was researching ways of improving nitrogen use efficiency. As the production of nitrogen is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gases in crop production, improving the plant’s ability to use nitrogen could help reduce nitrogen requirement and thus cut greenhouse gases, he proposed.

Other new research was aimed at improving the drought tolerance of plants and increasing the proportion of healthy omega oils in soya.

GM crops may be a contentious issue, but research into the use of compost should please everyone. However, as Richard Fenwick of CAT reported, life is seldom that simple.

In 2008 the organisation won a contract awarded by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) to monitor the effects of using compost from three treatment plants on five farms in the Eastern Region.

“Compared with other forms of organic fertiliser, compost is readily available and has a good nutrient profile,” Mr Fenwick said. “Little nitrogen is released from compost in the first year, but it is a source of phosphate and potash in year one. It is also an effective means of improving soil condition.”

The compost was used on winter wheat and sugar beet in farm-scale trials. Under NVZ regulations a maximum of 250 units/ha nitrogen can be applied in any one year, even though the nitrogen in compost is released slowly over several years. This meant only 15t/ha of compost could be spread, despite the fact that the maximum quantity of organic material is set at 30t/ha under NVZ regulations.

Surprisingly, despite a pre-harvest analysis of yield potential which suggested higher yields in the treated crops, this was not achieved. Ex-combine yields of treated and untreated crops were similar, with no benefit detected in the winter wheat.

Nevertheless, Mr Fenwick believed compost could be financially valuable.

“When phosphate and potash are expensive, compost has a significant replacement value, even with an average haulage and spreading cost of £8.50/t. For farmers close to a composter the costs will obviously be lower and the value greater.”

Typically the yield benefits of using compost might be expected in subsequent years when the nitrogen is released and soil improvement could be measured. It would also be useful to be able to measure the effects of using higher volumes per ha.

However this will not be possible as financial constraints have meant funding has not been made available by Wrap for an ongoing trial, as originally planned.

Arable farmers concerned at the constraints on their budgets are wondering whether the addition of more biofuel plants will reduce the relatively high stocks of grain and lift prices.

Michael Archer a senior analyst at the Home Grown Cereals Authority was not convinced.

“We may have some lessons to learn from the USA,” he said. “It was assumed the increase in biofuel production from maize would reduce the volumes available for export, but although export volumes decreased slightly, production increased to compensate.”

In the UK, wheat prices can be affected by US maize prices, he added. The UK wheat market may also become more regionalised with increased production in the North of the country driven by the new biofuel plants on Teeside, in Hull and at Immingham.

The likely impact of such plants is still uncertain, however, not least because of their location near ports and the potential impact of the dried feed grain by-product which, even if derived from imported grain, will come onto the UK market.