not a prepper - but anyone prepping in case of farmers taking action?

[JellyTotsAreYum]

Along with fruit & veg crops which will have been affected in Spain, if British farmers start to take actions like those in France & Netherlands (blocking ports etc), then maybe we'll start seeing supply issues.
As I said, I'm not a prepper, I just keep a sort of one out one in type pantry, so any advice welcome (even if that's not to do anything 😀 ).

Mist farmers I know voted for Brexit. Yes despite all the help they were receiving.
The NFU was also supporting brexit

@JellyTotsAreYum I think you’re right to be worried about supplies.
But I think it’s a much more major risk than just a few strikes.

See climate change
Valencia yes but also greenhouses that were destroyed, the extremely high temperatures theyve had. Farmers in France were very worried about the harvest this year etc etc….

So if you wanted to prep, it’s not tins in the cupboard I’d go for.
But a greenhouse, vegetable plot etc….

If you’re adding 2 or 3 items a week over any months, you will have a decent store cupboard that should last you a couple of weeks.

And then you’ll be the one who isn’t stripping the shelves when an event seems likely, because you won’t be needing to stick up.

Obviously you need to buy the long life stuff that you actually use, and use the oldest first (so you don’t have to throw stuff away because it’s gone beyond a safe age)

If more people did this, there would be far less panic buying

@MitochondriaUnited think you need to check your facts.

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
Ill be honest I got my news (on the NFU) from Leave voting PIL…..
And yes most of the farmers in the area voted like that. See also all the grumbles around the rules re moving animals from one field to the next, double labelling the sheep and cows etc….
Who was I to not believe them on that?

Tbh I dint think it makes any difference now.

I wouldn't say I don't buy anything at full
price, but I do buy a store of something when it's on offer.

I also don't buy certain things when they're at the regular price because I know they'll soon be on special again.

and I always check the per kg/ml price when deciding what size to buy. I have a friend that cannot understand this & always buys 'the cheapest' & thinks I spend too much🙇🏻‍♀️

I'm lucky in that I don't need to do this, but it's just how my brain works!!

@MitochondriaUnited I agree ‘who voted what’ is circumstantial based on who you know, what they say, and whether they tell the truth.

Most farmers I know recognised that the vast majority of burecracy was and is U.K. generated via farm assurance schemes - things like the red tractor assurance etc. We have higher food production and environmental standards than the EU, the 97-10 labour government used to hold plate most agricultural eu standards to make ours higher. Agree it’s all a bit of a moot point now, but the British public should absolutely be applying pressure on this and successive governments to improve food security.

What on earth are you talking about

I saw hundreds of tasty strawberries that were grown locally. I live in a place with loads of farms and eat lots from a local independent shop that stocks the farmers’ stuff. The government is moronic to fuck about with food production like this.

If people generally had well stocked larders then absolutely that would be fine, but when it comes to people changing buying habits around times of rumoured shortages that’s when shelves get stripped, not by panic buyers, but by everyone just adding one or two extra items to their trolley, stock control in supermarkets, which I’ve worked in can’t automatically keep up. It’s not just one person buying a tin of extra peaches who doesn’t usually, it’s huge parts of the population.

Stock control works on forecasts, it not like if a few start changing buying habits all of a sudden like you can just suddenly adjust your deliveries, there’s a whole chain and it takes time to steer that around. So around Covid, everyone who was adding just a few extra items and thought they weren’t part of the problem, well they were the problem, we are a collective, things we do affect the big picture.

Come to NI - we have access to lots of lovely European fruit/veg etc thanks to our ROI neighbours. Never any shortages here

Farmers are always complaining about something. Moaning because, although they get a bigger IHT allowance than the rest of us, it should be more. No surprise its Jeremy Clarkson and James Dyson making the most noise.

People have to start at some point.

And there is no certainty at the moment that there will be action and that it will rapidly impact supplies.

Now is better than when action starts to gain momentum, and it’s not possible to build slowly over months and people add more than two or three items,

The more it’s spread, the better. Because those who feel caught short won’t listen to assurances and will strip shelves like locusts. If the numbers doing that can be reduced, by people holding a slightly larger amount in their pantries the better.

After all, for you to have a well supplied pantry, you must have been doing this too. Do you believe that building up your store over time has really warped the market place?

And surely it’s better to be a careful planner, who has thought about their pantry and store cupboard, than an impulse buyer who slings something (above their strict weekly need) into the trolley for fun. But then doesn’t really fancy it and it ends up as food waste.

Panic buying will probs be the most likely thing to cause shortage.

@anniegun most people are always moaning about something, and James Dyson and Jeremy clarkson are not ‘real’ family farmers. I think it’s correct that the loophole is closed.

Most mners wouldn’t cope with even a month of genuine family farming. No guaranteed time off, no freedom from anxiety about theft of equipment, stock or the weather, 365 days a year.

Been thinking about this a bit more - so I don't think even if there is action there will be shortage of dairy products as cows still need milking even if you go on "strike" and you can't exactly pour gallons of milk down the sink. I think a lot of animals that are kept over winter need supplementary feeding - if so this adds to the expense of keeping them longer and also I think sometimes the price goes down if they get a few weeks older.
Veg/grain - possible to delay bringing them to market, but you need strorage and a lot of veg can't be stored too long.
If farmers blockade ports then they could get arrested (it also takes them away from their farm).
What I have read is that at the moment they spread a lot of "treated solid waste" from sewage - ie poo - and they may decide to stop doing that. So the shit won't hit the fan but will pile up somewhere...

So generally, I think the weather we've had this past year will be more likely to affect supply at this time than farmer's actions, so I will probably just make sure my lader remains stocked and that's about it. (Although like a previous poster I do stock up when things are on special offer - got plenty of instant coffee at the moment).

Maybe 2027 will be the year to watch - there's a new tax coming in on imported fertilizer, which will lead into increased food prices. (Included in these tax measures are cement, aluminium & steel, so if you need building work best get it done before 1 Jan 2027).
[A few randoms have commented that maybe the concessions from using "red" diesel will be done away with as well, but I can't see that happening as it really would destroy the agricultural sector.]

There is also public perception of farmers which I think isn't that great and many won't want to bring that perception down further by creating a food shortage.

Though I have read on the Farming forum about a few of them wanting to go 'Full French'.

Interesting that you think that farmers couldn’t pour milk down the drain. When people had milk quotas they had to pour excess milk down the drain.

I think having a healthy stocked larder is good anyway

How do you get that without taking more than your usual shop off the shelves?

Adding a couple of items each time is surely better than doing an extra trolly load.

There were lots of gaps on shelves at Sainsbury's today. Not noticed that on a Monday lunchtime before.

OK - didn't know that (not a farmer & don't know any farmers).

Not prepping because of any danger of a farmer's strike, but because of the floods etc around Europe leading to shortages. Particularly as, thanks to Brexit, we're no longer top of the list for supplies from our closest neighbours.

At least the next round of Brexit checks has been "postponed", yet again...

The NFU was practically begging farmers to vote remain!

Its frightening how quick people can be to repeat absolute nonsense.

The farming press polls mostly decided that farmers voted in roughly the same way as the rest of the population. Most of the younger farmers I know voted remain.

Remember that not all farmers own the land they farm and not all landowners are farmers. A Brexit supporting businessman who has bought a lot of land locally and rents it out to farmers as seasonal grass lets had tons of pro Brexit signs in his fields but in no way was that reflective of the views of the actual farmers using the fields.

back to the actual question - there's no risk to British farming supply chains at the moment, the danger is in a few years time when farmers have cashed the land out and sold it for development or have gone out of farming and let the land out for tree planting, solar panels and rewilding projects whilst they claim the environmental payments and work a 9-5 job.

You do realise that farmers aren't a homogeneous group don't you? There's huge farms owned by companies basically with farm management who are very unlikely to stop as why would they? Smaller scale farms have traditional farmers so more likely to take action but i still don't think they all will.

Anyway of the things in my fridge not everything is European

I misread as "by people holding a slightly larger amount in their panties". 😂

Oh god, it's as much as I can do to get my kids to eat lovely fresh tomatoes/peppers etc - there's no chance they'd entertain a tinned carrot!

I might just stockpile some vitamin tablets.