"Which are highly subsidised by their respective governments...
"
I agree, they really shouldn't be subsidised.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
UKIP => yes to independence?
(189 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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But we have had access to as much food as we need or want. The situation was quite different after WW II and governments felt they needed to encourage food production.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The situation was quite different after WW II and governments felt they needed to encourage food production.
Which is exactly why the CAP was set up in the first place.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Food security might be worth subsidising national farming - perhaps it can never happen again, but it would appear that WW2 exposed an overdependence on imported food within the UK.
In 2011 we imported nearly three times as much food as we exported.
If, for some reason those imports hiccuped, we could suspend our exports, but we'd also need to increase production - possibly best to keep the expertise alive nationally just in case, even if food can be produced more cheaply elsewhere... The same argument goes for keeping land in production, as it takes time to make it productive if it is left fallow...
Robert
Posted 11 years ago # -
"The situation was quite different after WW II and governments felt they needed to encourage food production.
Which is exactly why the CAP was set up in the first place.
It's a strange argument and I struggle (admittedly from 60 years on) to understand why food wouldn't have been produced without government intervention. It had been before the war and, with perhaps the provision/replacement of farm machinery, why it wouldn't recover isn't obvious.
I have read arguments that the extension of rationing beyond the war resulted in less food being produced than would have otherwise been the case.
And I have seen yet other arguments that rationing during the war exacerbated the shortages.
Posted 11 years ago # -
As I remember it was just cheaper to buy food from elsewhere so farmers stopped producing it.
Posted 11 years ago # -
http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/local-election-results-2014-aav.html
The Guardian used some very crude statistics to print a ludicrous story claiming that the only area of the country that rejected UKIP was London. They compared the pro-UKIP vote in London (7%) with the aggregated average for the entire rest of the country (about 20%), as if the rest of the country is some kind of homogenous blob. The narrative of the story being that London is an enlightened city full of educated, cultured and well-informed people, whilst the rest of the country is inhabited by backwards, uneducated UKIP voting yokels. It's hardly surprising that the London based Guardian would come up with a narrative that is so contemptuous of the rest of the country, but the actual facts paint a very different picture
Posted 11 years ago # -
About food production...
My understanding is the UK can produce around 50% of its food 'needs'
So if we had to go it alone, we'd simply have to reduce consumption by 50%. This would be no bad thing - eliminating obesity and many health problems (almost) overnight.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"As I remember it was just cheaper to buy food from elsewhere so farmers stopped producing it."
A rational response then.
Posted 11 years ago # -
So if we had to go it alone, we'd simply have to reduce consumption by 50%.
The return of ration coupons, WW2 style?
IIRC all the parks, gardens, etc. had to be converted into allotments to grow vegetables.
Understandable in times of national emergency and shipping blockade, but a bit grim for ordinary folk I would imagine. I believe it was called 'austerity'...
Posted 11 years ago # -
But after independence we will have such great productivity and be so happy that we will live on thin air. All will be much better. I predict. Wait, Alex salmond predicts.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Scotland has 33% of the UK's agricultural land but only 9.3% of the population. Doesn't mean we could be self-sufficient, but an independent Scotland would certainly be less dependent on food imports than England.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It was a rationale response for the individual, but exposed the country to risk. It depends on how likely that might be in the future, as to whether its worth insuring against is the question...
The reference stats I found above suggest that the UK has access to 3400 kcal per head per day (2009). The NHS recommendation is ~2250 kcal, so perhaps we can cope without the imports, at least for a while...
Robert
Posted 11 years ago # -
Oh there is a Scottish government report on food security if anyone's interested.
Posted 11 years ago # -
We grow a lot of barley. I like it but some find it chewy. Think there are more fertile bits of the countryside elsewhere with longer growing seasons and warmer temps.
I also like porridge which could keep us going.
I am also a vegetarian and we could all benefit from giving up the Aberdeen Angus beefsteak might also reduce the methane?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Even under an independent Scotland I'm going to need access to coffee... Keith Brown is doing his best with his road building, but it will take a lot of global warming before we've got the climate to grow that. See also, chocolate
Posted 11 years ago # -
@sallyhinch, I always wondered why the ground coffee my grandmother used to brew up was bulked out with chicory. Much of it was until recently. I suppose it was cheaper, but also many folk may have developed a taste for chicory during the war, it was used as a coffee substitute. The Germans used something else for 'ersatzkaffee' but I don't recall what.
'Chocolate' in the UK is mostly vegetable fat and sugar anyway, apart from the 'premium' varieties. We can't produce cocoa beans, but we sure can produce sugar beet and rapeseed...
Not that I'm advocating some isolationist self-imposed trade embargo on exotic foodstuffs. It is an interesting thought exercise, and we have fairly recent history to show us what it would probably be like. Folk would be thin! Mind you, without smoking all the tobacco that people did then, we'd all be feeling ravenous!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Methane output isn't the only reason for using crops rather than cattle. You lose 90% of the energy at each step in a food chain so you can support more people from the same area of land if they eat plants.
It doesn't quite work in the highlands as crops don't work well on hills and sheep can.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"It doesn't quite work in the highlands as crops don't work well on hills and sheep can."
Not everyone would wish to be vegetarian, but certainly - worldwide - 'more affluent populations want/expect more meat' is a problem.
Eating meat that has been reared where growing crops is difficult, is a good idea.
Growing corn (using oil based fertilisers etc.) to feed to livestock is not remotely 'sustainable'.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Crowriver's link above suggests we're well placed for meat production, but not so well placed for grain (what we produce isn't currently suitable for bread, for example). Although we've got 33% of the UK's agricultural land, we've got 70% of the rough grazing, 18% of the grassland but only 12% of the land suitable for crops (cultivated or fallow).
Vegetarians might be in trouble, were it not for the fact that we've got only 8% of the UK population.
Robert
Posted 11 years ago # -
Don't forget fish - many 'vegetarians' seem ok with eating them.
Some like bacon rolls, but that's a whole other topic!!
Fishing around the UK has (probably) suffered because of the EU.
Fish farming is another area where food is given to creatures to produce 'cheap food', profit and unsustainable consequences.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Fishing around the UK has (probably) suffered because of the EU.
Alternatively, given the opportunity they'd have fished the North Sea dry by now and then they'd really be crying. As would we all..
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Alternatively, given the opportunity they'd have fished the North Sea dry by now and then they'd really be crying. As would we all.."
That's entirely true too.
It's definitely a case of making sure that over-fishing doesn't occur - which is probably best dealt with at EU level, perhaps with more 'quotas' for nations bordering various bits of water.
Less fish destined for fishmeal?
Climate change/warmer water will undoubtedly make monitoring and conservation harder.
Posted 11 years ago # -
From a Newfoundland perspective EU fishing policy is appallingly regressive - favours giant factory trawlers over onshore fleets using traditional fishing methods.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The Germans used something else for 'ersatzkaffee' but I don't recall what.
Roasted acorns. Beechnuts too perhaps. They also added chicory into this mix too.
"Camp Coffee" syrup is flavoured with chicory.
In South Africa many of the Nescafe-style instant coffees come pre-sweetened with chicory. I think they got the taste for it in Boer war days.
I knew a guy at uni who was big into his US Civil War tales, used to bang on about one of the state armies which existed largely on peanuts and coffee beans for a whole winter.
I would like to think that an independent Scotland would be able to afford to import some coffee beans, just like the do in Ireland and Iceland and Norway and every other small NW European state. I believe even poor countries have coffee.
Failing that, we can formulate National Coffee out of peat, wood pulp and bitumen.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"In South Africa many of the Nescafe-style instant coffees come pre-sweetened with chicory. I think they got the taste for it in Boer war days."
also zimbabwe
Posted 11 years ago # -
Anyone using chicory as a sweetener is indulging in real austerity.
Chicory is a bittering agent. Yes Sugar versus Chicory Together anyone?
Posted 11 years ago # -
IWRATS is right, you do need to add sugar to make it sweet. Coffee and Chicory alone are Bitter Together it seems. By sweetener I meant flavourer. Of course I did.
Apparently East Germany had "mixed coffee" (Mischkaffee) which was coffee, chicory, rye and sugar beet. Now that sounds Bitter Together!
Posted 11 years ago # -
For the vegetarians, one allotment-sized plot seems to produce enough vegetable matter to keep two omnivores going for about 8 months of the year as long as you really like kale. A polytunnel would probably extend that to 10. I assume vegetarians would eat more veg, though and it does rely on there being livestock around to provide manure.
I'm not sure if that would scale for the whole of Scotland either.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Apparently East Germany had ... "
All about inventiveness and/or 'making the best of what you've got' - like 'what happens when the oil runs out'.
(Date subject to 'facts' put forward by ASalmond and DAlexander - perhaps modified by the Green wish of 'leave it where it is').
Posted 11 years ago #
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