From chicken to potatoes, Britain’s never grown less of its own food

it’s almost like farms are being bought to avoid tax lmao

I guess British farms losing subsides post Brexit hasn’t helped either?

Yet we still do not have plan in place to improve this, especially in the face of overwhelming climate change threatening food supplies worldwide.

Have we considered not using so much of our arable land to just feed animals.

This article is slightly misleading, it states-

>the amount of food we consume that is grown in this country — fell from a peak of 78 per cent back in 1984 to 62 per cent in 2023, the most recent year for which we have data.

In fact domestic food production levels have been stable for around 20 years now-

[https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/8963/production/_130717153_optimised-uk_food_supply-nc.png.webp](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/976/cpsprodpb/8963/production/_130717153_optimised-uk_food_supply-nc.png.webp)

78% was indeed the peak, but that had risen from around to 30-35% in the 1930s’. Domestic food production is higher now than it has been through much of recent history.

[https://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register/britain-food-1930s](https://www.findmypast.co.uk/1939register/britain-food-1930s)

Farmland is under attack at the moment because the cost of growing the countries food has never been higher but farmers can not pass this cost onto consumers because of government and supermarkets.

It’s no surprise farms are being sold in record numbers when the price people will pay for solar/housing and rewilding land is more attractive than keeping the land in hand and using it to produce food.

We were renting an 8 acre field for 28 years, the owner died last year and the new owner wants to sell it, arable land in my area used to sell for £12,000/acre, now after inflation and government inheritance tax rises it will be more like £16,000/acre minimum and could even sell for up to £30,000/acre.

This rise isn’t because of farmers having money to spend on buying more land, it is all investment companies and people who have made money in other industries in the city that are prepared to buy it at any cost!

Is it called “growing” chickens? Because I’ve never heard it said that way before.

It’s a serious question… pretend that I’m stupid.

I’m not sure that’s true! However, if you was to talk about scalability due to massive influx of people the UK has taken in the last decade. Then I’d suggest it’s not sustainable. However, many countries over the thousands of years have taken in refugees, settlers, or whatever terminology, years before a long fight. These places become their lands, become their worth, become themselves and their family. Our generations blood is spilled in the hope of a better future. Whether that be today or a hundred years from now. Don’t be C U Next Tuesdays. People are people and want a better life wherever they are.

Well ya because their is no money in it, doing anything to improve it is difficult (so you can permitted development one barn every decade aye but what if you want to build a proper commercial farm and need 10? Fuck you planning will say no), our technology is old, we don’t have shit like irrigation despite the weather being inconsistent (drought atm so nothing is growing), etc, etc.

We have some of the highest food prices in the world, if you can’t make money as a farmer in the UK just do something else.

This idea that farmers should always make money (subsidised by the state when they don’t) and their entire lineage is entitled to be farmers is insane.

You’d think the land farmers have would be swallowed up by the earth if anyone but them farms it.

I think people should be encouraged more to grow their own food again in their gardens and allotments, it was so common until recently.

I would be curious to know how much food we produce now, and how much we could produce in the future with up to date techniques.

I was reading about food production during the Second World War and apparently even with every bit of land turned over to food production it could only feed the country for 48 days of the year, and at absolute maximum 60 days. (I appreciate there are variables – population size, types of food etc.) Is the country able to fully feed itself even a basic diet?

We haven’t been self sufficient for a long time. The UK only has the capacity to produce 50% of what we need, but with climate change and Labours plans to build on green land, things are only going to get worse

This is a good thing?
Why are people so obsessed with FACTORIES, with FARMS, with RAW MATERIALS

we’re first worl country, we don’t need to be farming and making widgets and gizmos, we make CARS, we make MEDICINE, we are a final stage assembly nation and we make big money, we won’t by being a feudal society competing with the likes of ukraine and latvia for the grains and dried veges

Eh?

They talking percentages or overall tonnages?

Because if it’s the former, then the fact the population has shot up and working farms haven’t. Would account for most of the shortfall.