Alarm Bells Should Be RINGING!

Many of us are guilty of heading off on our weekly trudge to the supermarket and very much take for granted that the vast majority of our shopping list is sat on the well stocked shelves, just waiting for us to make our selections and head back home with the minimum of fuss and aggravation.

Only this week, you've reached the fruit and veg aisle, and there's two women playing tug of war over the last remaining cauliflower, like a couple of Jack Russell's fighting over a squeaky toy!  For anyone that has been fortunate enough not to witness such an incident, you likely feel - well this can't happen in the UK in 2025, surely!

So what conditions or circumstances could bring about supermarket customers into open conflict, as they try to save their respective Sunday roast?  Anyone that takes an interest in current affairs, that doesn't allow main-stream-media to do their thinking for them, and doing their own appraisal of the current situation will be aware of a perfect storm that is the brutal reality facing our farming industry, throughout Britain today.

Make no mistake, anger is growing rapidly within farming, particularly with the Labour government policies appears willing to allow farming to wither on the vine, rather than come to the aid of this most vital industry currently in the very eye of the storm, with hundred's of farms facing extinction! 

London's streets have been thronged by 1000's of tractors, farmers and supporters during passionate protests in the last few months, but their pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

Farmers generally have been struggling because of a multitude of factors over the last several years.  Rising costs, lower yields and huge inheritance tax bills will see many family farms go to the wall or simply sell up and leave the industry, yet our government continues to send billions of pounds to Ukraine, whilst our farming industry is on it's knees and in the emergency room, requiring defibrillation.

The Future Looks Bleak.

Some of the difficulties in farming mentioned earlier is further compounded by the governments plans for enormous solar developments, so large, that they will simply dwarf what has been seen so far.  Solar cities on an industrial scale maybe sounds like a good idea for some, until it becomes clear that prime farmland is often earmarked for these massive projects.

So let's take a look at the bigger picture for a moment.  Our food supply and it's origins can be crucial in maintaining enough capacity to sustain our needs.  So here are a few key facts that when added all together has the potential to bring some very serious pressures on our already depleted food supply:

• Further loss of 9% of farmland, on top of land already given over to solar industrial sites. *
• Inheritance tax demands vastly reduces profit for the majority of family owned farms. **
• Official figures show in 2023, Britain produced only 58% of the food consumed. ***
• Over 50% of farms and farmland sales in 2023 was sold to non-farmers! ****
• Big rises in imports of foreign food and meat, with lesser welfare and quality standards. *****

The loss of productive farmland on this increasing scale will have a profound effect on the availability and sustainability of British standard food supplies to shops.  The most alarming issue in our dwindling food supply industry is that this whole situation has been brought about by either policy, or blamed on external influences.  This willful destruction of our once cherished farming industry has been mirrored across all other western countries, whose governments no longer see any value in supporting farming or farmers.  What we eat in future is being dictated, with the demonization of real meat and the culling of large numbers of animals will see the complete, eventual, eradication of farm animals altogether!

Bleak looking future indeed.

Sources:

*        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpv0qx9wxo

**      https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-to-agricultural-property-relief

***     https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/food-statistics-pocketbook/food-statistics-in-your-pocket#global-and-uk-supply

****   https://rural.struttandparker.com/article/english-estates-farmland-market-review-winter-2023-24/

***** https://www.fwi.co.uk/news/imported-food-found-to-carry-higher-pesticide-residues

           https://bryantresearch.co.uk/insight-items/low-welfare-imports/