Scientists believe the increasing reliance on foreign food could also make it more difficult for the UK to become self-sufficient.
Although why anyone would want the UK to be self sufficient in food is beyond explanation.
Scientists believe the increasing reliance on foreign food could also make it more difficult for the UK to become self-sufficient.
Although why anyone would want the UK to be self sufficient in food is beyond explanation.
Not sure I see the point, but I always understood it to be in case of world war 3. Not sure people will be all that successful in blockading the whole of the UK, but you never know…
When Peter the Great had St Petersburg built, he imposed a tax of two or three rocks on each carriage entering the city. If we’re blockaded, we could do a similar thing by imposing a tax of 2 or 3 oranges on refugees/migrants. I’m sure they’d still be getting through, blockade or not.
Why? U-boats.
What population could a “self-sufficient” UK support? Twenty million? 30?
Nowhere near 65m. Why should we be “self-sufficient” anyway?
Lucky we have the EU then, what with its mountains of butter and lakes of wine.
U-boats? A navy.
There is no way, no way at all that the UK could be self-sufficient in food. Not a chance, especially given that all the woo these days is in favour of less intensive agriculture.
So, the only way to be self-sufficient is to reduce the population. At least halve it. Hmm.
Yet the Woo people who want self-sufficiency probably also favour mass immigration. Hmm.
Let the poor eat cake.
Cattle cake.
In newspeak self sufficient is inherently good when it comes to food, clothing, goods.
Unless you are talking about individuals, schooling, acting without the help or intervention of the state, in which case self-sufficiency is bad and usually suspicious behaviour.
GMO foods could soon have us harvesting bananas on the North York Moors, pineapples in Shetland, and ……….
I am old enough to remember when Britain (1950s and 60s) was mostly ‘self-sufficient’ in food which was largely ‘local’ and ‘organic’ and ‘seasonal’.
There was little choice, it was monotonous, fruit and veg often part rotten, riddled with slugs/bugs, we prayed for the season to end to have something different – and it was expensive compared to now.
Avocados? Mango? Broccoli? Chillies? Mushrooms?
Anyone ever been to Ireland? It’s fucking empty. They have a big empty country, full of loads of fields, and they export enough food every year to feed 30m people.
So there’s Ricardian comparative advantage for you – the big empty country with load of fields produces food, and sells it to the big full up country which produces other stuff. Magic.
They do love their autarky, these progressive thinkers.
BIM…Empty Irish fields. I think they call them golf courses.
“I am old enough to remember when Britain (1950s and 60s) was mostly ‘self-sufficient’ in food”: I doubt it. We weren’t even self-sufficient in wheat for bread. The reason that places like South Africa, NZ, New Zealand, Argentina did so well off us was that we needed to import food from them. The US too, I dare say.
Rob>
“Yet the Woo people who want self-sufficiency probably also favour mass immigration.”
Not exactly. The Nazi-leaning fake greens say they want open borders, and they do, but that’s only after they’ve killed off all the ‘darkies’ who would otherwise take advantage of them.
I’d have thought that huge swathes of Northern England are now newly fertile with all that silt lying around in high streets.
Maybe that’s the intended economic base of Gideon’s “Northern Powerhouse”.
Doesn’t seem to be a scientific problem really…
Modern agriculture is mechanised so self sufficiency in food means self sufficiency in oil
Self-sufficiency in a crisis doesn’t mean you have to be self-sufficient before the crisis. The UK has a vibrant seed export industry and could easily expand the domestic market if needed. Keeping a couple of pigs is common in many countries – we could do this too ( Dewsbury, Leicester and Golders Green excepted ).
The EU country with the highest agricultural subsidies per hectare ( Greece ) is curiously one of the most at risk of not being able to feed itself.
Subsidies are the problem. Abolition of farm subsidies and free trade is the solution. As it always has been, smiles.
… is beyond explanation.
I’ll bite.
It comes after figures from the National Farmers’ Union …
There you go. Union wants more members. Done.
Why need self sufficiency when you have well stocked supermarkets everywhere.
(should I explain?)
What happens when those foreign sourced supermarkets can’t get shipments from their suppliers?
To be fair I can only see one method by which the UK could feed itself involve lots of steady energy and farm factories. Perhaps the British should go back to what the British do well and set up a trade triangle between London, Titan and the Moon.
From London ships full of politicians can be sent to the cracking plants on Titan.
In the Titanese cracking plants the excess hot air would be used to separate Moon bound hydrocarbons from those used locally.
Although the Moon doesn’t send anything physical to London it’s importance is by far the most important. During the initial building phase a pair of City workers decided to found the Lunar Broadcasting Channel. In the most important court case of the century it was ruled that the LBC violated BBC’s exclusive rights to broadcast in British territory resulting in a record 999 year penalty payment. Luckily for Lunar inhabitants “The Lunatics”, a blatant Dr Who ripoff, became a surprise hit by defeating the combined forces of media piracy and those that do not do not think like me to become responsible for 56% of the GHP(Gross Human Product which, depending on context, can be used to measure the economic activity of the entire human race).
The overall goal of food self-sufficiency would come about as a natural side product of this trade route. Due to the lack of solar energy at Titan fusion reactors will be developed. Thanks to the length of the Lunar day crops will need to be grown in specially designed rooms to provide the correct conditions.
While this may all seem difficult don’t fret, just keep a stiff upper lip, everything will work out. Keep in mind that you will be restoring the British Empire. This time it won’t have the pesky locals thinking you are stealing from them fermenting revolt at every step.
“More than half of the UK’s food and feed now comes from overseas, which is burdening poorer countries with the related environmental impact, a new study says.”
Burdening poor countries with the environmental impact. That sounds bad. How does that work?
“More than two-thirds of the land needed to produce the UK’s food and feed is based abroad, researchers said, meaning 64% of the related greenhouse gases are emitted on foreign soil.”
So the very act of growing food is bad. Wow! We must stop that immediately
But hasn’t George Monbiot told us that rearing livestock to eat meat is even worse, we must stop that immediately!
Indeed these humans, with their evil habit of EATING, they’re a blight on the planet they are.
@ dearieme
I think John B remembers being mostly self-sufficient in *those categories of food that we grew*.
*mostly* meaning that we ate British beef but imported butter from NZ and Oz, grew soft wheat but imported hard wheat for bread flour from Canada.
I don’t know where he lived (?East London) – the food in my local market was *not* rotten or slug/bug-infested, we had variety even within seasons – “monotonous” means only a choice of apples, pears, plums, damsons or cherries or strawberries, rasberries, loganberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants or gooseberries or pea, beans, broad beans, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli or cauliflour …