[Rosemary]

http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/this-weeks-news/food-should-now-be-in-the-frontline-of-national-security-1.1078345

This article by Alyn Smith MEP was carried in "The Scottish Farmer" last week. I thought it was interesting and thought provoking and sensible. If you haven't already seen it, please have a read. For a politician, Alyn Smith seems a pretty decent bloke and with a real committment to agriculture IMHO

[sheila]

A very good article but what does he suggest we do about it?

[Rosemary]

Good question - maybe we should ask him and get him on TAS

[morri2]

AT LAST!!! Politicians, Scottish ones at least, are waking up to the real problems the UK is going to face in the future.  I have been reading books about this (as previous posts on this site have shown) and it is a serious and growing problem, governments here seem to ignore it and hope it will go away - it won't.  Climate is changing, the growing season may well become shorter, so will food supplies so we need to be more self sufficient - letting so many immigrants in isn't helping either, it leaves us even more unlikely to produce enough to feed ourselves should the SH 1 T hit the fan!   (I'm starting to sound dramatic now aren't I!!!)  Water is probably going to be the first real problem worldwide, hotly followed by that other substance the food industry relies on....fuel!!  But here at home we need to start producing more food and the powers that be need to start supporting the farmer and promoting home produce - NOW! On a lesser note, the middle of the British apple season this year saw my local Tesco stocking ONE variety of British apple - the rest were imported - disgusting!!

[Fergie]

  Water is probably going to be the first real problem worldwide,

At least water is unlikely to be a problem in Scotland for the foreseeable future ......  :

John

[doganjo]

AHEM???  Well it is here - I have had no running water for over three weeks except that the stream, garden and paddock are now overflowing! And my hot water tank is empty so have had to run off the heating in case it explodes or the boiler bursts.

[bamford6]

gm feed is half the price a bag off chick crumbs is £11 pound iff its gm its 5 uros very soon pigs chickins eggs will be imported in mass demand eggs is the 1 thats being imported at the mo haw can we meet demand when we have oure hands tied .france and germaney have been waiting for this .i have to put eggs up 20 pence iff asda sell 25p cheaper no way can we carrey on .iv kept 70 laying hens on iv had no money from them since late november roads wether etc they are laying well but we dident make  10 pound this week .selling chicks who wonts chicks at the price off feed and electricatey

[Fergie]

AHEM???  Well it is here - I have had no running water for over three weeks except that the stream, garden and paddock are now overflowing! And my hot water tank is empty so have had to run off the heating in case it explodes or the boiler bursts.

Sorry Annie,

I forgot about you.

In spite of my frivolous remark, the whole question about food is a serious one.

John

[Norfolk Newby]

I think it is probably worse than even the good politician states. The reason is that many of our food producers rely on imported cereals and stuff like soya beans/meal to feed their animals. Similarly, most of the fertilizer used to boost production is imported. This probably increases the overall level of demand to over 70%.

In modern times, it was always so.

In both the 1st and 2nd world wars, the lack of imported food led to big problems.

Protein is a major problem as it takes a lot of green stuff to produce a bit of meat/fish/eggs/dairy stuff. If we all went vegetarian or at least cut down of the amount of meat etc, it would be a lot better - and so would we!

In medieval times, the ordinary peasant was lucky to eat meat once a week so there is a precedent for this.

We could produce food artificially. Back in the 70's, both BP and Shell developed techniques for producing protein to make a meat substitute similar to Quorn (which is, I think, based on imported soya) using paraffin or natural gas. The process was quite efficient compared with traditional methods and a lot of countries were interested (like Norway, the Middle East) where meat production is difficult and expensive.

But the whole business was shut down. The process based on paraffin was stopped on the basis that there remained a small amount of paraffin in the product. The fact that most of the dried fruit we eat is coated with the same paraffin to stop the currents/raisins/sultanas sticking together is neither here or there. The natural gas approach went a similar way.

The technology is still there so it would be possible to revive it. Other than that, I don't see what can be done.

[Rosemary]

Starting to make better use of the land available woudl be a start. I bet we all know of small pockets of land that could be productive if people who want to produce their own food could access it. Councils and developers could plant fruit trees instead of decorative (and sometimes not even that) but non-productive shrubs. More support for people to grow their own. Better education for school pupils on the issues and what we can do about them.

There was an article in a magazine about the amount of soya and stuff we import and how we could produce meat on homegrown forage if we changed practices. Probably we do have to eat less meat but there's an awful lot of land in Scotland, for sure, that you can't grow much on apart from beed and lamb.

[robert waddell]

having read the article twice he is telling us no more than we already know     is there an election looming that he is portraying himself as the only carring and concerned politician
now during the second world war all land was put to use growing crops to feed the nation farmers did not agree with the ministry mans insistence that meadow land be ploughed and planted(i remember as a child being pointed out a field that had potatoes in it it was so wet they never were lifted and this was quite a common occurrence)        councils planting fruit trees(having been involved with tree planting on the edge of villages in the past)is a non starter a good idea but in modern society a non starter
at present the nation is to well fed for sweeping changes to be made and implemented just as an example take the crisis in the dairy industry as long as there is milk to pour on the nations cornflakes and colour there tea the consummer does not give a stuff if the farmer is paid less than it costs to produce
to quote from this weeks Scottish farmer (farmers view by Jim brown page 6) over the festive period,i heard a description of what the word politics represents-people of limited intelligence trapped in corruption and scandal!

[knightquest]

I think you are right lillian. We are too comfortable at the moment. I worry that it will be too late for some when we eventually wake up.

Ian

[bamford6]

we do need to change .there is a lot off food wasted last month the tanker couldn't get to some farms so the milk was dumped i had a churn for us the kids stopt drinking milk its not clean .they dont eat meat school says you dont need it to fatty i have sunday roast the kids dont .haw long will this Carey on for .i have blue milk real butter meat 3 times a week im not healthey up at 10 to 6/ 7 days a week im not doin work like that the kids think im mad .new yeres day worked solid till 5 realey hard but very happey the kids shouldent work on holadays they just dont get it

[scattybiker1972]

check out transition towns west kirby.there trying to get towns self sufficient by planting public orchards grow and swop food ect.there also trying to encourage more towns to follow
      www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk