War, farming and food supply

They’re already through the roof. I almost passed out in Lidl the other day when buying a 750g pack of diced steak for a stew.

Won’t be long before we’re back on Pottage. (Joking, or at least hoping I am!)

I meant what I said.

Did you mean the op?

Why am I being called a prepper out of interest?

It's not all about you.

Very few preppers have any grounding in reality.

There’s no guarantee your freezer would even be working in the event of a war, there could be power cuts or you could be bombed out/displaced. It would also be unlikely to remain filled for the duration of a war. Probably you’d exhaust your supply before the country really started to feel the pinch. Remember in WW2 the list of rationed items grew as the war dragged on, and continued long after the war ended.

So I would go ahead and process the free food you have growing if I were you! I’m not sure I see the logic in allowing good free food to rot on the grass and then going on to complain about food instability and being unable to feed ourselves. I’m presuming what your husband wants to rush out and fill the freezer with is meat, probably some of which will be imported.

Oh yes definitely. We've heard the local farmers making noise about how much they'd get for their land and not wanting it as the crops just aren't profitable. So sad really.

I was just demonstrating that the two main parties are different for the poster who said "they're all the same" which is a foolish notion

We had a Labour lockdown in Wales and it was stricter than the rest of the country and lasted longer. If ours was anything to go by it would have been much worse for the economy and the only reason they eased up was the funding for furlough ran out from Westminster so they had no choice.

I’m not a drama queen (maybe I am), but for this (and other more wholesome) reasons, I am learning to grow and preserve my own.

I am genuinely worried for us, and more for my children and any future children they have. I think your concerns are valid, OP, even if they’re not immediate.

Sadly, shouting about the government is like screaming into the void, and a waste of energy. I’m using that energy in trying to become, at least a little bit, more self-sufficient. Sadly I live in a city and only have a garden. I haven’t been able to convince my family to uproot to a small holding in the bum arse end of nowhere with excellent growing conditions and enough room for some chickens and a goat. Maybe if things start looking worse, they’ll agree 😆

Yep.

As Labour followed the recommendations from their review but the Tories didn't. I think it's fair to suggest that Labour would have followed the recommendations from Cygnus.

They're all the same? A position pushed by those who are privileged enough so that politics doesn't really effect them. Or those who have no understanding of how politics effects their lives.

In 2016 the Tory government ran a simulation of a flu pandemic. Exercise Cygnus. It was not published nor were it's recommendations followed. Lack of ICU capacity and PPE were highlighted.

Conversely, in 2005 under Labour there was a Pandemic Flu Strategy, this included detailed plans, from antivirals, to PPE and ventilators.

Two very different approaches.

"They're all the same" Bollocks are they

Like there were plans for ensuring there was sufficient PPE or medical equipment if a global pandemic hit? I know that was a different govt but imho they're all as bad as each other. You have far more faith in their planning abilities than I do! 😀

Well the formally arable fields surrounding my village have been turned over to housing estates. Labour seem to have relaxed planning rules. DH owns 10 acres and we know we we could get planning permission if we wanted whereas in the past it would have been turned down. His fields are a little pocket surrounded by housing as other land owner s have sold up and made a lot of money.

Globally we are going to have to produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in the last 8000. The world population is expected to hit 10 billion by 2050 (sorry if this has been mentioned, haven't read the whole thread).

Food shortages are going to get worse and are likely to affect us all. Will be hungry here in the UK, possibly? But certainly prices will spiral.

We need to focus on food security in the UK. We need to stop turning prime farming land over to solar panel farms when solar panels can be put elsewhere (roofs, central reservations, etc). I live rurally in arable farming country and these solar panel farms spanning hundreds and some of them thousands of acres are going through planning currently. I keep objecting to them but they keep getting planning permission.