War, farming and food supply

Are the problems with food security are down to Labour's failing? Can you explain please?

Farmers don't want to keep operating farms in difficult growing conditions and without EU subsidies so they shut up shop and it's an easy profit to sell land to property developers. There's no guarantee they would want the hassle of having complex technology placed on their land. That's the big issue in that all the land is owned by people that may not want to play ball when they can sell it for a nice sum.

Less than 10% is a LOT. We are one of the most densely populated countries in Europe. Each person requires 1 acre of farmland to sustain their diet, and we have 69 million people and 60 million acres. Even if ALL our land was farmland, we wouldn’t be able to feed our population without help at this point. It really riles me when people think 10% of space being built on isn’t a lot because it really is.

I live in a village, we've had corn in our local fields this year. Within two weeks of one field being harvested it went up with a planning application for 50 houses. I'm in a very rich farming area and our farming land is disappearing very quickly here. We are close to an agricultural college that speciises in agri tech and vertical farming. We need to urgently start looking at investing in these technologies. If war hits we could possibly sustain ourselves a little better by doing so. Plenty of warehouses we could remodel, create the power from solar and wind without needing to connect to the grid. It could be possible in my utopian world to sustain ourselves. We say this country isn't productive, we could easily turn ourselves into the forefront of science and food technology. It's not like there is a worldwide demand as we face cljmate change.

In a worrying development we are in a global banana shortage due to climate change, I googled it after seeing very empty shelves in our town today and my friend in another town said the shelves are empty there too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wgeq702dyo

😬

Even if we accept that the UKs total and utter interest in ensuring 100% food security in 1945 was somehow a mistake; then why blame a party that as been in power for 1/80th of that time for the problem ?

It's not really what critical thinkers do.

Don’t blame the op for Labour’s failings.

Yes unfortunately green fields are cheaper to build on that brownfield sites which often have to be cleaned up.

Not thanks to your scaremongering over food security though. 🤣

Unfortunately I think many politicians from the 2 main parties are out of touch about the countryside and lots of other things! That’s a massive bugbear of mine but one for another thread.

I don’t believe we should build on greenfield sites until absolutely every other possibility has been exhausted, including renovating existing buildings. There is no virtue in it except to greedy property developers- can’t people see that?I see thousands of ‘executive’ homes (ridiculous expression - what does it mean?) being built and I’d like to know how these £million+ houses help with the housing crisis.

Looking around my own small town I see at least 4 brownfield sites, all close to schools, doctors and shops (walking distance) which developers have been sitting on since before Covid. The govt should act to force them to use these sites or give them up…but they really want a beautiful field to build on, don’t they?

1992 tax reduction opportunities are NOT irrelevant if it is the same tax or similar opportunity status that British farmers are returning to soon, if the thread is partly about whether farmers are feeling pressure to sell up or not and thus UK agricultural production might be reduced.

I draw OP's attention to war in Kosovo/Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia that dragged on during the early 1990s. Which conflict drew in Osama Bin laden among others, Since so concerned about land war in Europe. Shall we just ignore skirmishes between Greece & Turkey over last 5 decades (two NATO partners) or all the Middle Eastern wars since 1945 (or before even).

I can draw OP's attention to the Cold War if not already concerned about human annihilation. Or Soviet invasions of Czech and Hungry in 1960s & 1950s. If so concerned about global security. And the proxy war in Afghanistan in 1980s. If you think "now" is a particularly insecure time to be alive.

I draw OP's attention to strong performance of BNP in British elections in 1990s, if so concerned about extremist politics.

Pfffffffffffftttt.

'Guy shrubsole'

He wrote a book on farming, I mean it's just perfect

@Lifeinthepit well yes exactly.. my point was in regard to who buys up and hoards land in this country without farming on it. More in response to the idea that homes etc are needed as a justification for losing farmland which I disagree with.

I think something has been lost in translation though so will bow out.. very much in support of more farming on this island though. In fact I've literally dedicated my career to encouraging it.

@Lifeinthepit they did. And I'm not disputing that, in fact I wasn't referencing IHT at all, as a farmer I'm very aware of it. This was simply a response to the issues of land use that had come up throughout the thread.

The current Labour party seem to have this attitude that "the countryside" is inhabited mainly by braying toffs wearing tweed who spend their time hooting at each other across point to points, while exploiting the masses, and are therefore to be punished. Down with the rich and take their rural stewardship with them. Who cares about biodiversity anyway? What did biodiversity ever do for us?

For anybody interested in UK land use, I highly recommend Guy Shrubsole's books 'Lie of the land' and 'Who owns England'. With fifty per cent of land in England being owned by just one per cent of the population and between thirty and fifty million pheasants being raised and released annually on it (as well as being fed grain etc) there's plenty of good arable land that could certainly be put to better use.. a farmer getting the chance would be a fine thing though..

Oh hallelujah! A sane person.

I hate this idea that it’s OK to build everywhere. We need fertile land for farming AND we need land for nature. Humans are not the only things which have a right to live in the UK. Birds, mammals, reptiles, invertebrates - they need habitats and we need these creatures.

Travelling around the country it’s impossible to miss the vast number of housing developments in the countryside - villages are nearly doubling in size in some cases.