Vocal Voices

Supermarkets are reported to be rationing certain lines of vegetables because of shortages. These shortages are being caused by inclement weather in the growing areas of Spain and Southern Europe. Notice, it is the weather, not global warming, climate change or war causing the problems, just the weather.

However, it does show how finely balanced the food supply chain is and how easily it is disrupted, and here's the rub:

"Southern Spain provides around 80% of the fresh produce for the EU out of season, so it is not just the UK," he told BBC Radio 5Live.

"There are still stocks coming in, albeit at a reduced rate - I have seen it is as low as 30-50% of what we normally have - but the challenge is we are not the only people buying it.

"With Germany, France and the rest of the EU too, the people who are prepared to pay are going to get it."

When these events become more common, as they will with climate change, things will a few different ways. The growers will make sure that their own are seen to first. The prices on the open markets will go through the roof as the richer countries try to secure their 'share'. And there will be wars over resources.

The UK, with its growing population and reduced farmland, already imports nearly 50% of its food and will become particularly vulnerable - as today's situation shows.

Just went to Sainsbury's in Bamber Bridge and there was no apparent shortage at all - they had everything in the vegetable line, and plenty of it. There didn't seem to be any hint of rationing either.

The interesting thing is that when the EU producers have problems, as they do every decade or two, it is Egypt, Israel, the US and Australia who fill the gap.

Out of the EU and less reliant on the EU producers, we could be in a much better situation to get our food at reasonable prices and the EU could find itself at the back of the queue unless it's willing to pay prices higher than their people can afford.

In the end, however, there won't be enough food to go around. Then the wars will begin.

There is solid evidence that the flames of the Arab Spring were fanned by lack of flour and the rising cost of bread. This was caused by the storms in the US, fires in Canada, fires in Russia and drought in Australia. All driven by Climate Change.

That is now, in 30 years, climate change will have a much higher impact on food production.

The UK should understand this and try to mitigate it. Sadly we won't.

Rodo, the supermarkets worst hit, at the moment, are Tesco, Morrison's and Asda, it all depends on where their supplies come from.

Suff wrote:That is now, in 30 years, climate change will have a much higher impact on food production.

The UK should understand this and try to mitigate it. Sadly we won't.

If anything we are doing the opposite by allowing the population to grow and grow and then building homes on farmland to house them. There is decent technology in hydroponics and vertical farms, but we will never build enough to meet all our needs. We will either have to make changes ourselves or have change forced upon us. It is looking much like the latter being the case.

I've always been a keen fan of grow-your-own and when we moved down to Somerset 40 years ago, we were happily harvesting all the staple vegetables and salads from the back garden, and growing the exotica in the greenhouse.

However, nowadays, costs are getting a bit prohibitive. I priced a simple small cold frame out at the local garden centre, it was £72. Growbags are topping £3 or £4 each. Might just as well buy from the supermarket, TBH .....

The greengrocer's in town has stopped doing cheap carrier bags full of veg, due to the hike in prices

I don't see why our old pre-EU trading partners would want to do us any favours as we dropped them like hot potatoes when it suited.

Ossie I think you have a point - the veg we got from D's greenhouse was delicious, but when factoring in the costs involved the supermarket would probably have been the cheaper option

Kaz wrote:I don't see why our old pre-EU trading partners would want to do us any favours as we dropped them like hot potatoes when it suited.

5th largest economy in the world. Free traders, 65 million people (official, more like 70+).

They wouldn't be doing us a favour, they'd be doing themselves a favour.

The EU is a closed market with artificially high prices; who carry out punitive trade tariffs every time they feel threatened.

I don't give a damn who sells us what food, or why...... we need to be growing more of our own - a hell of a lot more!

Oh I agree, however we couldn't feed ourselves in WWII and we had 45 million and a lot more farmland. Reality is that whilst we need a lot more of our own food, we'll never be able to feed ourselves, at this population level, without pretty drastic action.

For instance Scotland is about 1/3 of the landmass but much of the ground is unable to support the crops we need due to soil quality. Climate also ensures that much of Scotland only gets one crop a year. Yet where I live in France they can often ensure 3 crops off the same land.

In that scenario it is vitally important to ensure our food security from other countries who produce more than they can possibly consume.

I have mentioned before that when the Russian gran fields burned in 2010, the grain cars were rolling day and night moving the EU grain stores all over Europe. The reason this was different is that, normally, Russian grain is loaded onto ships and taken to ports where it can more easily be trans-shipped. Whereas the EU grain was stored in soilos local to the farms all over the EU.

With the global nature of things we have come to the conclusion that seasonal goods should be available all year round. Salad veg in January, raspberries flown in from Greece, cut flowers flown in from east Africa.

If we want food security we're going to have to accept that there are seasons to foodstuffs. We're nowhere near there so why should people even care about food security when a lot of them can't even conceive of the idea that they might not get fresh Pineapple in January.