THE FUTURE OF FOOD IN BRITAIN
THE FUTURE OF FOOD IN BRITAIN
I'm having a conversation with myself. Oh, well, why not . . . ?
Some more stats: the UK has 60,609,153 people. It has 5,612,100 hectares of arable land.
So -- if we assume that one hectare, under primitive conditions, will supply grain etc. for 5 people, we can see (multiplying 5,612,100 by 5) that the arable land of the UK would support 28,060,500 people. That's LESS THAN HALF OF THE PRESENT POPULATION.
And those figures (especially my gratis claim that only 5 people could live on one hectare) are not pessimistic. On the contrary, they're “wildly optimistic.” I've experimented for years with growing grains under primitive conditions. I get a yield that's between 5% and 50% of the yield that is achieved by modern high-tech agriculture. My yields match those of other experimenters (e.g., Gene Logsdon, in Small-Scale Grain Raising).
Personally, I think I'd rather stay in Ontario. But Newfoundland (based on three visits there) is also quite appealing.
Actually, most of my calculations about food supplies are based on the assumption that people will do a bit of fishing, hunting, or trapping, in order to provide vitamins A and B12, iron, calcium, and fat, not to mention high protein. But that’s based on the North American situation. I can’t quite visualize 60,609,153 Britons netting salmon on a Sunday afternoon. But “wild food” makes more sense than raising animals. Even chickens can eat vast quantities of grain (as I’ve learned the hard way), never mind cows.
-- Peter
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Food
Peter
Yes it is quite frightening when one looks and the numbers. We will also going to face a mass exodus of people from the major cities. We currently see a growing trickle of people moving to Cornwall from the South East and this is already causing problems with housing as they have greater funds and local people can therefore not afford property. The vast majority of people in the UK live in cities and they will not want to stay there unless forced to.
It will be the same in most countries I think it was James Lovelock who said that he could see the population of the USA moving north into Canada so there could well be strife in Newfoundland!
In Cornwall the transition town movement is looking at food. We also have to look at vertical food production and maintaining the fertility of the soil. But as you described it is not going to be easy and people will have to cultivate every patch of ground.
Ian
Interesting discussion and
Interesting discussion and sorry I've missed out on it until now. I totally agree that food supply is going to be a massive problem, and I'm not really sure what the answer to mass starvation/migration is, there probably isn't one. I think all we can really do is prepare ourselves as best we can...which is what Groundswell is all about. I hope that's not too "British" an atitude!
I've been trying to grow vegetables in my back yard this summer and all I've managed to produce are two small green tomatoes and some shrivelled up brown chard. And I wouldn't consider myself an awful gardener either (especially not compared to most of my friends who've been brought up in cities). If I was relying on that (very) small patch of land to feed myself then, well, I'd probably be dead by now! We (I?!) really do have a long way to go, and a very short time in which to get there.
Yes, it is VERY doom and gloom and no, there is no easy solution. I agree that alternative energy for example will never be able to meet our current energy needs, however it may lessen the blow...for a while. I also think biofuels are going to cause enormous problems - they're already pushing up food prices and it's of course going to be the poor who suffer first. However I do hope that the more we can prepare ourselves at this point, the less dramatic the fall will be. This of course is an enormous challenge and I think groundswell are doing a fantastic job.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel? No, probably not because there'll be nothing left to power it... my mistake, the sun's still there, lets hope we can make it out the other side then.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Actually, I'm not sure I'd have great regrets about the future. Eventually there'll be lots of breathing space, and air worth breathing.
And the subject of "population" has some pluses and minuses. For example, Newfoundland actually has a DECLINING population -- fairly unique, I'd say. (There are also other parts of the world, including parts of the British Isles, that have declining population in "absolute" terms.) Newfoundland also has great opportunities for hunting and fishing. But Ontario also has its pluses. In fact, there are various anomalies elsewhere in the general global problems of "population, resources, environment." Even Utah has possibilities -- the Pauite Indians lived largely on rodents and insects (well, okay, that's going too far, I suppose).
As I said to someone else a while ago, there's also another (but related) kind of light at the end of the tunnel. The funny thing is, I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing to "go back to Nature," if you'll forgive a rather poetic expression. Perhaps the "old days" have been underestimated. Here's a note from a sort of diary I kept one year --
I wandered half-consciously down to the river and watched its great sheets of glimmering silver, its crosscurrents sliding eternally along. I leaned against a small tree above a steep section of the bank. I then understood what Walden is all about. Its long discussions of philosophy and economics and politics are not the main point. They are just the superstructure, not the substructure, which is a far more ineffable thing. As I watched the river, I saw that what really motivated Thoreau was the love of Nature. That spiritual bond can never really be put into words. It is never quite under the control of even those who feel it. It is fragile and evanescent. One could read Walden from cover to cover, if one were not in a receptive mood, and never realize the true spirit of the book. And yet the words are there, as in the first sentence of the chapter "Solitude": "This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself."
-- Peter