Am I the only shopper who has noticed that shelves in supermarket stores are not as plentiful as they used to be? In the last few weeks when I’ve popped into Tesco, it’s almost like the pre-Christmas rush has taken place, there are lots of unfilled spaces on the shelves.
I’ve just read that one of the UK’s biggest meat processing companies has been forced to close a factory blaming soaring food inflation, and 450 people have lost their jobs.
Faccenda Group, the second-biggest chicken processing company in Britain, said it had been hit by the rocketing cost of wheat – a key ingredient in chicken feed – which has more than doubled in the past year.
And there are also reports that some some retail chains are stockpiling goods, afraid that their suppliers will go bust due to rising prices.
One of the UK’s largest cash-and-carry chains has increased the volume of vegetable oil and rice that it holds in its warehouses and is understood to have spent £10 million on extra stock. How long before other outlets follow suit, spreading panic?
Stockpiling promotes fear and greed, the instinct for self-survival kicks in, of caring for your own, it can bring out the worst in people’s natures.
Meanwhile, I met someone today who told me about the fresh produce he grows on his allotment, how he thinks more of us will want to be self-sufficient in the future and enjoy our locally
grown food, a kind of Good Life scenario, that we are going full circle back to our natural roots.
It’s an idea which is rapidly growing in appeal, with villagers in Hampshire turning their backs against supermarkets and growing their own produce, as well as rearing their own chickens. So far, 101 families have signed up for their community allotment scheme. I would sign up without hesitation if it was operating in my area, I think it is a great idea. In fact, I have emailed the link with this story to one of my parish councillors suggesting we start a similar scheme in our village as many of our allotments are standing idle.
While we are fortunate that we can still consider ourselves the land of the plenty – for now – how much longer will that last?
Update 22 April:Â Gordon Brown is today meeting food producers, retailers and consumers today to deal with the growing world food crisis.
That depends on how long the EU sticks to the biofuel policy that is starving the poorest in the world to death and creating these problems here. Grain prices are higher because people are burning grain.
And I’m afraid you’ve been cheerleading for the environmental alarmism that caused this, and for the biofuel agenda in particular so it’s a bit inconsistent to lament the effects of the policies you have advocated.
My view on biofuels has changed Peter, it’s very confused. I believe the area of land which is producing biofuels in the UK is less than 2%, and yet we waste vast amounts of food by buying too much and throwing it away. The push is now for secondary biofuels which would use non-foods, even manure, yet we lack the skills or technology for this, and it is much more costly to produce. I don’t profess to know the answers, I don’t think anyone does. But I do believe that food security and drought stress are issues we need to be considering much more seriously. I have done for a long time.
Secondary biofuels are unlikely to be a solution. The biofuels situation is not a problem of using foodstuffs to make fuel. It is a problem of using land needed for food production to grow biofuels. To put it another way, if we were making biofuels out of deadly nightshade we would still have a food shortage because we would be pushing out food crops to grow it.
We might in future be able to make biofuels out of manure. So what? We need manure for other things – organic farming perhaps. I can think of one blogger not far from these shores who is keen on organic food. Are you keen to see the whole industry destroyed?
This is why us market fundamentalists keep turning out to be right – because we are guided by the price, which includes all of the resources involved in producing something, and takes into account alternate uses of each of those resources. If you take silly greenie measures like carbon-footprints you are assuming that carbon emissions are the only things that matter. And you will end up very confused when you end up with lots of low-carbon-footprint products but no rainforests or none of some other wonderful thing you hold dear but which you ignored by your decision to make carbon footprint your sole criterion on which to base your decision.
If secondary biofuels can compete economically then that’s fine. But what we are probably going to get is another round of green activists campaigning to make them compulsory or for subsidies(echoed here as well, no doubt) and then another series of cries of woe when we realise that actually there was something we left out of the decision making process because we ignored the signal given by the price. No doubt we will then start to hear about “third generation” biofuels and we can start all over again.
Allotments are great, my old man had one most of his life. Every year we were up to our ears in over production and couldn’t give the stuff away. These days the problem is security. In our village the allotments are next to the village green and vulnerable to vandals and thieves. If food becomes too expensive and in short supply allotment holders will soon find their stocks disappearing in dead of night. Sad old world.
Ellee, this is amazing – I’m in the middle of preparing a long post on this very issue. Shall quote you.
B.H. Secondary biofuels are not a proven technology and, even if we adopted this method, we don’t know how sustainable it would be. There are so many unanswered questions about biofuels, though I recognise they must play a role in reducing carbon emissions.
Chris, Maybe those allotments need a few geese to scare off the vandals, that should do the trick, at the very least it will alert neighbours to what is happenening.
James, I shall look forward to your post.
I think allotments are a great idea – there are lots here in Falmouth.
I agree with you. There are peculiar shortages of odd things in supermarkets and somethings are rocketing in price. Can anyone explain why lamb costs so much when we are surrounded by millions of them? I have an allotment, grow foods and catch fish and so on. I am writing about some of these issues in a fictional form on my blog alloted span. I wonder if you ever had a chance to read my more serious side?
We’re in for a big reality check.
Prepare.
The immediate cause of food shortages is competition from China and India.
They’re more economically productive than us and are now demanding a greater share of the spoils. Their consumption will soon dwarf ours and our self-righteous desire to ‘lead by example’ on the environment (lead ? Who on Earth do we think we are ???)will be ignored and brushed aside.
I happen to think that for us to lecture them about environmental constraint is hypocritical, patronising … and a little racialist to be honest.(As though whitey knows best)
I’m afraid I agree with Peter Risdon and disagree that secondary biofuels are unproven – they are proven, see my blog post here.
I get all my fruit and veg from the local farmers shop. They sell other types of local produce there too!
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Syockpiling is almost unknown here, as people like to buy fresh every day. Even at Xmas, there are almost no supermarket queues!