Food Crisis Could Force Wartime Rations and Vegetarian Diet on Britons
August 11th, 2009You’ll love the citation for the source of this:
“A paper setting out the food security assessment…”
That’s it.
The The Great Rupert Murdoch Wurlitzer strikes again.
Via: Times:
The British people face wartime rations and a vegetarian diet in the event of a world food shortage, a new official assessment on the UK’s food security suggests today.
Even though the nation is 73 per cent self-sufficient in food production, higher than during the 1950s, the food chain is at risk from global influences such as a worldwide increase in population, climate change bringing extreme weather patterns, higher oil prices and more crops being grown for bio-fuel instead of food.
Supplies in future may also be disrupted by animal disease outbreaks, disruption of power supplies, trade disputes and interruptions for shipping and at ports.
The UK however has one of the highest cereal production capabilities in the world with seven tonnes grown per hectare, compared a world average of 3.3 tonnes per hectare.
In the event of an extreme event, cereal crops would be used to feed the nation and ensure that each person received sufficient daily calories.
But people would have to consume less — the average number of calories eaten per day in the early 1960s was about 2,100, whereas the most recent figure compiled by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is 2,800.
Even during the Second World War Britain did not have to rely wholly on domestic food production, but Hilary Benn, the Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for food policy, has ordered officials to prepare for a scenario where the country could feed itself.
In the event of an extreme emergency the most dramatic consequence would be every person eating a predominantly vegetarian diet — more cereals, fruit and vegetables and less meat and poultry. Cereals used to feed farm animals would be shifted into human food production.
A paper setting out the food security assessment states that the food on offer would be “a highly restricted, if sufficiently nutritious diet”.
One of the biggest threats to the supply chain would be restrictions in trade of meat and poultry from Argentina and Brazil or of GM soya, the main commodity used to feed livestock in Britain.
Of course this is already being seized upon to advocate massive farms producing GM crops and at the same time peddling the line that the small scale, organic “experiment” has run its course and needs to be swept aside. My blood was boiling when I saw such comments from a so-called expert on the news last night.
I’m waiting for home gardeners to be accused of breeding some kind of superbug that causes crop failure or animal dieoff. You can already imagine the headlines:
THEIR FILTHY COMPOST PILES ARE A THREAT TO US ALL!
my filthy compost pile (well, plastic bottomless bin) even has a mole–soon to meet with a new recipe: liquid vege-based soap + castor oil + cayenne pepper. it’s a fight to the last filthy worm, i say.
Kevin you are right!
There was this Penn&Teller episode about organic farming, citing studies who accuse bringing the dung on legumes makes them E.Coli infested. Right, but that happens because of the wrong cow-diet in the first place (I allude here michael pollan and common sense).
There are dangers right now, but when the circle of mass, energy and information really works, those threads vanish instantly.