Food in Britain ran out today.

[jansman]

The National Farmers Union said that today is the day the food in the United Kingdom would have run out, had we only been eating HOME PRODUCED food.

If all we had was home produced food in the shops, what would you eat? No pasta or rice, no tomatoes in Winter. You get the picture. Given that today we have been told that climate change could cause 'Food Shock ' crops fail as a result of that change, UK produced food may be our last line of 'defence' as it were.

[cumbrianish]

Did they say why? Is it because of the time of year or just production levels?

[jansman]

If you read the first sentence , 'if we had only been only been eating home produced food'. The farmers are making the point about how important THEY are as food producers.

[cumbrianish]

Yes, but is that because of the quantity of home produced food in general or because at this time of year there are less home produced food items.

I ask this from purely selfish reasons... I'm trying to plan my new allotment for feeding us through the year and if this is a so called hungry period I'll up my tinned stores to cover it

[jansman]

I do not mean to be rude but... It is the idea that if THE ONLY FOOD EVER AVAILABLE FOR THIS YEAR IF WE HAD TO GROW IT HERE AND NEVER IMPORT ANY... Today it ran out. The limit of what we are able to produce ourselves in an agricultural year to feed the folks living here. Is that clearer? It is a pretend/ what if? Situation posed by the farmers of this great land.

[cumbrianish]

Oh right total production not because of the time of year it is... Now I get it.. sorry... Can I claim the Friday defence... Brain no worky no more

[Decaff]

This is where the food stocks comes in handy, *if* this happened there would be many starving desperate people out there. Whilst living off the rationed food stores a good organised community would be digging for victory and planting as much as possible to get as much stocked up for the long months ahead, chickens would become a common sight as would foragers. After all there was no pasta etc even 40 years ago widely available in the shops.

We have a lot of communal gardens where I live and I'm sure the other residents here would happily help dig and plant to feed themselves.

[preparedsurrey]

Must admit I was struggling to get my head round it thinking of different harvest times etc rather than on a tonnage produced/ consumed per day basis. Looks like it will be soylent green time - can I suggest we start with all the estate agents I'm sure the daily mail would happily run a story saying they had put a processor on the uk exit from the Chunnel.....

[Smudge]

If we were only eating home produced food, they wouldn't be exporting any and they'd be producing more of it.

[westlothianlass]

Mm interesting question. We try and eat seasonally but i do have rice etc stored, but that wouldn't last for very long. I suppose we would just learn to eat a diet that would have been familiar to our grandparents generation. Books on cooking through the war years have lots of suggestions though they are definitely potato heavy.
So many people i know seem to lack even basic cooking skills that i can see that would also be a problem.

Might be an excuse to buy a few more old cook books