Farmers warn of food shortages and first ‘year without harvest’ since the end of WWII

14 comments

1. Almost like those extreme weather events are disruptive like people said eh?

2. Fortunately our local trading partners will help us out?

3. cant wait for people to make this about brexit somehow

4. On the bright side with all the s*it in the rivers these days their fields should end up very well fertilised.

5. Insert superhero meme with two buttons

   “blame Brexit” and “Blame Climste Change”

6. > the first season without a harvest on some farms since the end of World War II .

   Not quite the end of the world prophecy that the headline suggests.

7. Don’t worry – the government have this… Just ignore all those new oil exploration licences. They don’t mean anything, it’ll be fine.

8. Fortunately we can just import everything but that’s a slippery slope.

9. Think of the NHS dividend due to not having to treat so many obesity related illnesses.

10. Fascinating. Starting in the 18th and perhaps even the 17th century, Britain’s agriculture became more and more pastoral aka grew less crops. Agricultural revolution, enclosure, industrialisation. Britain could import grain to feed its population.

    Come WWII and suddenly we have a blockade in place, and grain shortages across Europe. We needed to become more self sufficient. We enacted official measures, both ground up and down, to put this into motion. The Gov would buy home grown crops at an above-market rate but larger farmers would still not be making as much as they did under mixed or mostly pastoral farming. Dozens if not hundreds of farmers had their lands seized because they refused to comply with the new mandate, and one was even killed after violently resisting.

    I mean boohoo, fuck around and find out. We had a nation to feed.

    But the farmers of today…? There’s no way you could subsidise the wealthier farmers of the English heartlands to the point where they could maintain the standard of living they enjoy now. I am talking RICH farmers here – met a few of them. Many had diversified their land use however, so perhaps a WWII style agrarian push would be less impactful? Or would they have the means and will to resist any pseudo collectivising mandates?

    It honestly makes me think of shareholders. Any perceived “threat” to their investment could cause a selling run.

11. I am informed that most of the fields under water are in flood plains that the larger farmers planted on the likelihood they wouldn’t flood, and are acting up in arms about it to try to get the government to pay for expensive and uneconomical flood defences.

12. Meh, I just bought about 7 kilos of sweets. I’ll be okay.

13. Maybe it’s time to stop complaining about eco-protestors and get on our side??? Maybe???

14. Astounding that the anti-climate-action telegraph can write about the real time impacts of climate change and still not bring itself to join the dots.

    The water is coming from the north Atlantic, which has been record-breakingly hot for well over *four hundred consecutive days*. And ten consecutive record breaking months of global temperatures. None of which even makes it into the article. Are they trying to fool us or themselves at this point?

    Now : This won’t happen *every* year, but it will happen frequently because this is basically going to be average weather from 2030 as we smash through the +1.5°C limit. This is weather we need to be expecting.

    But we have failed. Now we see the consequences of a complete failure to mitigate, and a complete failure to adapt. And it will get a lot worse…