War, farming and food supply

[Lifeinthepit]

With the recent incursions by Russia into NATO territory, it got me thinking about the increased danger of war. Bearing in mind we have nearly 70 million people squashed onto this island that's a lot of mouths to feed if the food supply lines are broken (which presumably would be a priority target by any enemy).

With that clear danger in mind, I wonder how the government is encouraging and supporting our farmers and what measures they are taking to ensure that farmers continue to farm the land to produce our food. And also how they are making sure there is enough proper farmland available (and not built on or sold to Blackrock to be covered in solar panels) to potentially support 70 million hungry people.

AIBU to think that the Government are doing the opposite of making sure our food supply will be secure in the time of any war.

Not really, I’ve seen it 3 times in the last 10 days

It might be impacting your views but as pp said probably good for a new thread.

😆🤣😂 I live on a UK island where, half the time, the ferries don't run! They charge ridiculous money and we are stranded here several days/weeks a year.

I don't think we'd notice if there was a war, we'd just carry on!

Yeah, I'm torn on this one. We are net importers of food, but we have an awful lot more than we strictly need.

We also eat a whole load of processed sh1t which isn't even really "food". I somehow can't generate any panic over it all.

I recently realised that with climate change, crops are likely to fail more often with extreme weather events. Even then, a bad summer for one crop can be a good one for others. This year we had months of drought but a bumper harvest because of some other factor.

I have an allotment and I see first hand how difficult most crops are to grow- mainly due to pests and diseases. I'm in admiration of farners who produce great yields compared to your home growers.

I suspect whilst fresh food might be harder to get hold of, and food supply chains could get interrupted, the profit motive will mean food will still be available to richer countries like here. Its poorer or middle income counties that really seem to bear the brunt of societal collspses. 😔

That's not to say I'm complacent, but I've moved on from panicking about it all since COVID. If anything this proved to me how resilient our systems are.

Oh ffs, I'm sick of all this lame scare-mongering about the Labour government being anti-farmer.

I answered your question earnestly, now I realise it's just another bloody dig at Rachel Reeves.

Our government have to find colossal savings. They've aimed at closing a couple of loopholes at the expense of two relatively privileged groups who can well afford it: pensioners and farmers.

And the bleating and moaning from the right wing press is sooooo tiresome. You'd think they'd taken milk from starving babies.

The winter fuel allowance was just bunce to most pensioners, including all those I know. And as for farmers, they need to look closely at the bunch of self-interested carpet-baggers like Clarkson to blame. They've thrown a spotlight on the inheritance tax loophole by shouting it from the rooftops. Now it has to be tackled, just like all these "white collar" crimes.

Its in very poor taste to start bleating about food supply as a means of making a political point, but I guess that's where social media has dragged us.

People are so jumpy about Labour being criticised.

So what you are saying is that it's OK to have a taxation system (that will raise peanuts but will devastate the family farm) that negatively affects our food security at a time of potential war, as long as it shafts farmers like Jeremy Clarkson..And those farmers that are not Jeremy Clarkson are collateral damage.

If war does come and the UK cannot feed 70 million people I think at least we can console ourselves with that.

About the same amount of land is given to golf courses as all of the homes built in the UK

In the event of a war I am more than happy to go and play my part cultivating four of the golf courses that are a 10 minute cycle away from my house!

In a time of crisis, I think wealthy privileged men can give up an expensive and fairly pointless land intensive hobby, and if they are concerned about the loss of exercise opportunity they can help with the manual labour required!

Why should anybody be against the party that didn't cause all this! If Labour had been in charge in 2016, Brexit and all the damage would never have happened.

Because people like you pretend that Labour was in charge when it all went wrong which is just weird!

Right let's gets some facts right! A lot of farmers have shut up shop because they don't like managing without the EU subsidies! It wasn't Labour that instigated Brexit and it wasn't Labour that voted for it! But all the the voters could think about was immigrants! Despite being warned that it would damage the UK, people still voted for it! And the immigrant crisis escalated anyway!

Labour inherited a huge national debt and can't bail the farmers out.

The issue isn't just bailing them out with money either, the climate is now a major issue! By May last year we'd had the 18 wettest months in record which caused issues for crops, this year we've have drought that has caused havoc for crops! We live in a geographic position between several oceans and continents and we have no reliable set weather pattern and it's getting worse but try telling the climate change denial mob that!

It’s going wrong for them now.

You didn't mention the loss of seasonal workers coming over. Another Brexit failure

Because there's so much to put right and they are being lynched constantly by reform loving mobs that think magic spells exist to get rid of the issues!

Oh I could go on all day about the crap caused by Brexit! Extra border checks kick in next month, is that produce rotting more as it sits in lorries waiting to get in or out!

But Corbyn (Labour leader at the time).was pro Brexit?

The actual issue is the maths behind the changes in APR and BPR. And the maths just doesn't work for a huge amount of farmers sadly.

Good point but he was a weirdo to be fair but the current government wouldn't have done it. Corbyn was wishy washy - but then maybe at least have spent time getting us a good deal instead of smashing a fist through our relationship with your the EU like the Tories did, he maybe would have sat back and talked through the consequences more unlike Boris!

But Theresa May was in charge of the Brexit negotiations and she was a Remainer?

Yes and the old boys club basically pushed her out and in came Boris! A man who was hell bent in making sure parliament couldn't talk about the potential issues, I haven't forgotten his messed up games where he called for a snap election, got parliament suspended all to run the down the clock! He bullied his way in, banned all discussion, failed to negotiate with the EU or stop and think about the risk to the Good Friday agreement! He ran down that clock ok purpose because he wanted to crash out of the EU to appease his voters so they would vote him in as PM!

He wasn't, he was lukewarm to remaining. I think he said he was 70% in favour of staying in

But what the leader of the opposition did is kind of immaterial, the Tories went ahead with a very damaging version of brexit. They had the majority to do what they wanted.

The nfu campaigned against it, sadly the farmers didn't listen

I was replying to the PP who said if Labour had been in charge Brexit wouldn't have happened.

The Brexit vote was in 2016 from recollection. And Boris didn't become PM until July 2019.

Well you're right about that, but not right about Corbyn being a brexiteer

I’ve a small farm producing various food produce. We are small scale, but the cost of everything makes it such hard work to make a profit despite the 18 hour days / 7 days a week.

Energy prices are at the heart of it. Everything goes up in price - feed, machinery etc.

The government lied about reducing energy prices and it’s gone up since they were in power. Net Zero needs to be scrapped immediately. Today. It’s an absolute horror story how much we are wasting on it and driving up the costs of energy for an absolute pipe dream that it’ll ’save the planet’