To think Britain should start growing it’s own food again?

[Vocaladvocaat]

The situation in the Ukraine clearly isn’t going to resolve any time soon. The lack of grain from Ukraine is pushing prices higher. Add in further political instability in other parts of the world to the mix. We are always told that IK farming isn’t competitive but with the rising prices, it can be and furthermore; having home grown produce is seeming like it will be more necessary in the future. AIBU?

I don’t think it’s as simple as « just start growing all out food again » 🤣

Of course it isn't - but you can't tell that to people like OP who think they have simple answers to everything.😂

Considering a butternut squash I grew and stored very nearly celebrated its first birthday before I ate it, I'm sure we can grow out own and encourage people to eat in season.

After watching Simon Reeves' Mediterranean a few years ago I don't buy Spanish greenhouse grown produce at all. If I don't have any of my own, British or Dutch peppers in my freezer throughout the winter I go without.

Instead of fancy recipes with fresh food from other parts of the world and out of season food, shops should be encouraging consumers to eat seasonally, how to store and freeze when available.

It’s not false. They said they’re going to build new towns. What land will they be using for that?

It’s always farmland that’s used, because farming in this country is so difficult and unrewarding, that farmers happily sell their land to developers.
I challenge you to think of a single housing estate you have seen built recently that wasn’t on farmland.

Agricultural land is classified into grades and you can't build on a lot of it. Also not all land you see is agricultural land or fit for growing.

Green belt is not the same as farmland though.

There is so much misinformation on this thread about farming and where our food comes from it’s scary.

For a start, we’ve never bought wheat from Ukraine/Russia. We grow wheat well, but not the highest grade wheat. The vast majority of the wheat we import comes from Canada.

There are loads of crops that grow really well in our climate. Beans/legumes/brassicas/peas/corn/salads/pumpkins/squash/potatoes/herbs/root veg/berries/apples/pears/wheat/oats/rye alongside all livestock and egg/dairy produce.

Thats more than enough to make a very varied diet with with a few imports or better use of greenhouses.

What we need is the government to support farmers so that they get fair prices from supermarkets and producers so that farmers don’t leave in their droves or sell their land for housing.

https://www.ukflourmillers.org/post/statement-on-uk-wheat-supply-in-light-of-current-situation-in-ukraine#:~:text=The%20UK%20imports%20almost%20no,supply%20problem%20or%20availability%20issues.

UK wheat supply.

We are also surrounded by a lot of fish rich sea…

Yes definitely. But it means a lot of people are going to have to adjust their expectations about what they eat in which season, and we will have to pay prices that make it worthwhile for growers.

What are you talking about plenty of farmers and landowners sell their land under a Conservative government.

This came up when people were concerned that Brexit would affect our ability to import food. There was a chorus of “we can grow food in the UK”.

The UK hasn’t been capable of being self sufficient in food production for well over 100 years. Our economy is based on industries other than agriculture and our land use has been converted more and more from agriculture to other uses. We no longer have infrastructure and a workforce that is suitable for converting the land back to large scale farming.

Everyone who thinks that converting land back to farming is a good idea (which land exactly and how is it suitable?) wants someone else to make it happen. Nobody who says this has any viable ideas about how to do it, or wants to give up their job to be a farm worker, or thinks that their son or daughter who wants to be a doctor or work in IT to work on the land instead. 🤔

If we have so much fish why can't I afford to buy it?

There are new ways of growing food, Thanet Earth supplies half of our tomato supply in absolutely huge growing greenhouses. It’s an amazing sight. I’ve also seen new initiatives such as growing space underground in London, and using new tech to grow strawberries elsewhere in the country.

Living in Kent, the garden of England, makes it clear we do grow quite a lot still, but there are problems with finding the necessary amount of labour post Brexit. Also quite a bit of our growing land is being turned over to wine production, because climate change has made it quite desirable as vine production land.

Also there are local small organic farming initiatives such as the Rebel Farm in a kent, who want to have a complete rethink on our food production, making it easier for us all to grow if we have space. Their polytunnels are really inspiring, they don’t have a hungry gap, and produce microgreens which are nutritionally better for us but don’t require much growing space, they’re grown indoors under lights.

Personally given the world’s problems, climate change, the lack of nutrients in overused soil etc we need to find new, sustainable ways of growing our food.

Perhaps the supermarkets that have bought vast swathes of agricultural land to plant trees on, (pricing regular farmers and new entrants to farming out entirely) could.... grow food on it instead of greenwashing credits?

they don't though, they use more land and produce less food, and quite often use more environmentally damaging farming methods and chemicals - just to support a middle class fad for having the label "organic" on food

There are rules about being far enough away from non organic land (I.e. away from fertiliser) to be classed as organic.

Have a read of The Running Hare by John Lewis-Temple. He is a farmer and goes into great depth. It's an interesting read, not condescending or anything, just factual and engagingly written.

The worst part is that we are fast using all the nutrients that occur in the soil, so it will not be possible to farm at some point in the not too distant future.

We do. I live in Kent and lots of fresh fruit and veg comes from Kent.

Bit hard to grow citrus fruit, avocados, bananas, pulses and rice though.

Problem is, nobody wants to pay what it would cost to have everything grown / manufactured in this country. That's the reason we stopped as the consumers (all of us) wanted cheaper which came from abroad.

For better or worse, we are in a global economy now. The saddest example of this is that we catch prawns in UK waters which we then send to China to be shelled and sent back as it is cheaper than shelling them in the UK. That is just nuts.

We'd have to give up on luxury items, like snacks, crisps and many ready meals

Our sugar would come from beets, not cane

We'd have no citrus fruits, bananas, many apple varieties, grapes or any 'exotic' fruits and veg

Huge portions of farmland would have to be given over to poly tunnel culture for soft fruits and vegetables

Most of us with gardens would have to turn over to fruit and veg cultivation

Building homes, warehouses or industrial units on farmland would have to be absolutely forbidden

😁😁. Ok, I will say it before someone else does.

Pasta grown abroad? Does that remind anyone of an old April Fool?

But, yes, there are things I LIKE to eat from abroad, but maybe I don't have to?

Not sure why people bother with these random attacks on Labour: the Starmer New Labour train (the status quo you know and love - but now with added glitter!) is gliding happily into government come what may … 16 point lead in most polls. Can see that widening rather than shrinking.

Not many people posting on this thread from a farming background. It's VERY difficult to make a living in the UK right now unless you're in dairy and have a large holding. Our father (and grandfather) was very progressive and adaptive, and looking back now I'm in awe of what they had done. Even though it's a large farm and when I was growing up is was mixed, now it's almost all dairy.

It's impossible to make money in beef. Some tillage is OK, good for the mix but risky too. We experimented with polytunnels, but it's impossible to scale without a low-cost seasonal labour support, which was not an option where we lived.

Many farmers are required to have other sources of income. My DF (and his DF) achieved Uni level education through the army, it was not possible otherwise.

There is a lot more we could and should do with respect to food security in the UK. It begins with better support for farmers.

We do grow a lot of our own crops, but wheat (for instance) that grows in the UK climate is not the best for bread-making on a national scale, which is why we import a lot of grain from elsewhere in the world.

Perhaps we have got too used to having so many types of fruit and veg available all year round, and we need to cut back a bit on that. What's the point in transporting green beans or asparagus all the way from Guatemala or Kenya when they are out of season here? Same goes for things like strawberries. They are never as nice as UK-grown ones in season.

As far as I know, the UK is self sufficient in wheat.

If we were serious about growing all our own food on this island, we would slash livestock farming, especially cows, as the calories produced: land needed ratio for meat and dairy is appalling, and that's without taking into account all the land taken up with growing grain for animal feed. With more legumes etc grown, we'd be getting a lot closer.

For those rubbishing organic growing/ rewilding: you are aware that the UK is currently one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, and that a lot of this is down to agricultural practices? Just as one example: the number of birds on UK farmland has halved since the 1970s.

Poly tunnels are the answer. I’ve seen everything from watermelons to lemons and and all vine fruit you can imagine grown in poly tunnels. Then the root crops do well in the milder counties. We’d have to change the way we eat, store stuff differently and eat seasonally. We’d have to use meat more carefully. To be fair, it’d probably do us the power of good and knock obesity and it’s associated health issues right back. Back to the days of a small chop and 2 veg or a casserole or similar. We waste a lot of food due to our obsession with convenience and choice. There’s plenty of room to increase food production but I don’t think we’d quite manage self sufficiency. In terms of labour, you’re looking at providing employment to young people which would fit nicely around college and university terms, Also prisons are full of fit young men with nothing to do all day. This won’t be implemented though because it doesn’t make money for the right people.