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We’re going to starve
War in Ukraine, straining economies, and a global food system lacking in diversity could create a worldwide famine.
Have you been keeping an eye on the price of bread? It’s going up. In the last year I’ve changed the bread twice for a cheaper loaf. As long as my children eat it, the brand doesn’t matter. The price matters. The loaf I settled on most recently now costs more than the pricier one I switched down from. In four months the price has gone from fifty pence to sixty-five pence.
Sometimes there isn’t bread on the shelves at all. Sometimes there aren’t any eggs on the shelves. It’s becoming harder to produce enough food, and it’s becoming harder to get it to the supermarkets. There is no easy solution.
Farmers in the United Kingdom are giving up. The supermarkets are paying less at the gate for products like eggs than it costs farmers to produce them. They can’t keep operating at a loss. Appalling mismanagement by a kleptocratic government is not helping.
Farming was more profitable when farms could be run largely on cheap labour from Europe. Exports were easier as well, and much of the food on our shelves came from trading partners in Europe. British fisheries are going out of business because they can’t get their food to the continent on time. Getting seafood onto our plates is looking less and less like a viable business…
