If push comes to shove...?

rhiwfield

..how will you put food on the table? Will it be doing without a holiday, converting your lawn to fruit and veg, changing diet, starting a community farm or something entirely different?

About 15 months ago I posted about yesterday's farm, and whether it could come back. Fast forward and some of the reasons for posting that thread seem more relevant than ever:

• UK self sufficiency in food down to 59%
• UN says food prices at danger level
• IEA says oil prices at danger level
• Caroline Spellman (dont you just love the woman) says it should be illegal for countries not to export their food

So in this brave new world of 7bn+ people, climate change, economic chaos, peak oil and conflict, how will you put food on the table if you are faced with bananas at £5 per kg, potatoes at £3 kg, no carrots cos they've gone to Poland, bread rationing due to Australian floods and Russian fires and no rice or soya because China has outbid the UK on the global commodities market.

wssla00

I have wondered this. I have always thought if the conspiricists are to believed, in August this year we start world war three.....:think:

So if we were to go to rationing how would people cope? I would convert the garden I think but that is mainly because I have wanted to do that for ages and OH won't let me so I would have an excuse :rotfl:

But seriously, a lot of things would need to change and it would take a lot I think for people to survive. It would definitely be interesting! I'm hoping it wont go all Hobbs on us and we end up with a leviathan (i.e. no rules and you can do anything and take anything so long as you can get it- I'm paraphrasing obviously) and we instead become more cohesive as a community and help each other out when needed!

Sally_A

I grow a lot of veg, but will need to up my game, and also keep chickens if I need to put protein on the table. Other than mushrooms and carrots (can't seem to grow carrots - but will keep trying).

I tend to be able to shop veg free from June to September, some of that is frozen, but would by no means do us for a year.

Who's to say that electricity supplies won't be affected? That will mess up all the frozen food. Also veg seed would be at a premium too.

Too scary to think about really, but would make a good TV programme: I think the best food for storage would be spuds, pumpkins, garlic, onions/shallots, swedes. Chillis and tomatoes from non F1 seeds can be grown year after year, so can beans.

There would probably be an increase in veg theft - potato rustling.

cootambear

rhiwfield wrote: »

..how will you put food on the table? Will it be doing without a holiday, converting your lawn to fruit and veg, changing diet, starting a community farm or something entirely different?

About 15 months ago I posted about yesterday's farm, and whether it could come back. Fast forward and some of the reasons for posting that thread seem more relevant than ever:

• UK self sufficiency in food down to 59%
• UN says food prices at danger level
• IEA says oil prices at danger level
• Caroline Spellman (dont you just love the woman) says it should be illegal for countries not to export their food

So in this brave new world of 7bn+ people,

more people than ever have been lifted from starvation by more people to come up with solutions. more babies please, whatever the colur of their skin.

the Uk has been a net importer of food since 1800. you swap goods and services for food and vice versa. would you like to live on pork and beetroot and have no oranges and bananas?



climate change,

.‘Snow is starting to disappear from our lives’, reported the Independent in March 2000. Said an expert from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (of recent Climategate fame) ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.

economic chaos,

caused by thatcherite `liberisation of the banks`. a political problem that requires a political solution

peak oil

doom mongering. we were supposed to run out of oil 30 years ago

and conflict,

has been since the beginning of class society, and latterly imperialism

how will you put food on the table if you are faced with bananas at £5 per kg, potatoes at £3 kg, no carrots cos they've gone to Poland, bread rationing due to Australian floods and Russian fires and no rice or soya because China has outbid the UK on the global commodities market.

a blip. just as the manufacture of dvd`s rose to meet demand, so will food. (there is rice in my local tescos last I checked).

and btw,the mayans were crap astronomers.

rhiwfield

Cootambear,

You seem to have misunderstood the thread title "If push comes to shove.."

I note your comments that:

• you had rice in your local tesco last time you looked
• peak oil is doommongering
• you can quote a climate change prediction that has been proved wrong in the short term
• economic chaos is caused by thatcherite policy
• population growth should continue unabated
• UK swaps goods and services for food
• conflict is intrinsic in class society, and from imperialism
• food will rise to meet demand
• the mayans were crap astronomers

rhiwfield

Wssla00, trying to improve food growing skills is not as easy as it sounds, at least it wasnt for me

Sally A, although there is a good body of current knowledge on jams and many other preserves, there seems to be less expertise around in bottling and other food storage techniques. Having seen my winter apples partly succumb to the December freeze, I'm going to have to rethink storage for the future.

Like you say seed-saving would become more important, possibly the norm.

Lotus-eater

We'd eat less and have rationing, anything worse than that would mean total breakdown, murder and mayhem in the streets.

cootambear

rhiwfield wrote: »

Cootambear,

You seem to have misunderstood the thread title "If push comes to shove.."

I note your comments that:

• you had rice in your local tesco last time you looked
• peak oil is doommongering
• you can quote a climate change prediction that has been proved wrong in the short term
• economic chaos is caused by thatcherite policy
• population growth should continue unabated
• UK swaps goods and services for food
• conflict is intrinsic in class society, and from imperialism
• food will rise to meet demand
• the mayans were crap astronomers

what did I miss? to err is human, but to learn is human also.

Sally_A

There would be the need for more dried beans/pulses....boy would my OH bi*ch about that.

Salting beans was an old method, but to be honest I'd have no idea where to start, and wouldn't be able to google, going on the basis that the internet would be down.

Luckily I am surrounded by farms, so hopefully there would be milk available, even though the main purpose of these farms is beef at the moment.

I would be grinding up nettle roots to get a "coffee" fix

The government/local councils are so keen on doing "disaster planning" days, eg plane crash at the airport, chemical spill somewhere else, kidnapping of the councillors (hurrah!) etc etc. It would be good if they shut a town off for a month (without notice, or if there was notice, limit the dried/canned foods available - but with that sort of warning, the down time should be 2 - 3 months), to see what would happen.

I'd probably lose a stone in weight, hubby would moan there were no biscuits, and less meat, daughter would just get on with it so long as petrol for her car was available. Dog food would be an issue without spare meat - and dog is too old and scrawny to consider roasting :rotfl:

I think we'd survive, as cupboards have a mish mash of strange tins - tuna and peach pasta anyone??

cootambear

Lotus-eater wrote: »

We'd eat less and have rationing, anything worse than that would mean total breakdown, murder and mayhem in the streets.

do you know when this has happened? when countries grew their own crops, all that it took was a local crop failure for starvation to set in. trade meant that local crop failures could be met by imports from countries whose crops did not fail.

let the uk go self sufficient if you will. one bad wheat harvest and we`d all be cannibals.

Lotus-eater

Sally_A wrote: »

I would be grinding up nettle roots to get a "coffee" fix

I wish you luck, but you might have more success with Dandelion roots