UK would run out of food today

I did not say Ecotricity said there was no green gas in the UK but Anaries did. Anyway green gas will be frackfree whatever country it is made in. If it is a mix of green and natural gas, it cannot be described as green gas. It is hybrid gas and I suspect contains more natural than green gas.

I am fully in support of moving to renewable energy. I share most peoples concerns about climate change but the renewable energy industry whether the renewables gas/electricity is being produced by green energy companies, traditional energy companies or talked up by government is full of humbug and greenwash. It does all of them a disservice and only delays the time when we will finally have to come to terms with the effects of climate change and properly do something about moving our economy to an effective and reliable renewable energy industry.

Apparently energy from renewables outstripped coal last week.

I use Ecotricity, too, and I do not understand your problem, Flickety. They do not say there is no green gas in the UK. They say they have not built any gasmills yet. They import from Holland because it is frackfree.
This will be difficult for them to guarantee here except with their own gasmills.
They are a fuel company and do not need to justify their need for biofuels. The biocrop that pushes into marginal land is grass, which gets cut twice a year round here anyway. The other plant they are talking about is probably willow or flax which is used in crop rotation and can then be cut for fuel. We need more fuel. I'd rather they created biofuel than fracked under my house, which is why I buy my fuel from Ecotricity.
I buy from them because they are researching into renewable fuels.

Annaries I have looked at the Ecotricity green gas site and it struck me as a lot of green air. It includes some of the methods of green gas production, I mentioned in my second paragraph, although it doesn't include sewage farms as a source of green gas.

I am deeply suspicious about their justification for biofuels, all the things they say that biofuels do for soil and fertility can also be done by crops and agricultural methods that also provide food or pasture, or the growth of bio crops is pushing into marginal land that should be left uncultivated.

This link shows the full extent of biogas plants in the UK. [[www.biogas-info.co.uk/ad-map.html// and this the extent of Europe wide production of biogas that lists the UK as having one of the fastest growing biogas industries. adbiogas.co.uk/2014/01/15/eba-present-the-latest-biogas-production-stats-for-europe/

No green gas produced in the UK? Quite the contrary.

Pleased to see that granjura has started another thread about food waste - if we did not waste so much food in the UK the date of 7th August could be moved forward.

I agree, granjura but in answer to Annaries's post, we would not be importing food if it's grown by a British based farming company such as G's

but long distance travel all the same.

Annaries, When you say some British farmers have migrated to Mediterranean countries, are you referring to large farming companies who have bought or are renting land in countries like Spain so they can take advantage of a longer growing season? If so they are not exporting the food to the UK as it is already being marketed here.

Adressing the issue of the enormous waste in the first world- and also eating less meat- would really alleviate the problems hugely.

Annaries do you have any links to that, as I would be interested to know more.

There's also the fact that some British farmers have migrated to Mediterranean countries so they can grow food for longer and export to the UK

That is interesting, Annaries, I had not realised that. It is also of note because very many farmers from Mediterranean countries emigrated to Australia and are successfuly farming over there.

There's also the fact that some British farmers have migrated to Mediterranean countries so they can grow food for longer and export to the UK. What would happen to them if we stopped importing so much food?

That has been true of cities for centuries – too high a concentration of people to be self sufficient in food but giving some people the freedom to develop other skills. Thus is development and civilisation born.

The prinicple of specialised food growers now is not essentially different from feudal practices. The big difference is that food producation now is several orders of magnitude more efficient than it was in medieval times, than it still is in areas of subsistence farming.

Basically, we're too overcrowded to support ourselves and good farming land also makes for good building land.

Another reason the amount of land used for producing food has fallen is that more food is produced on less land nowadays than ever before. I mention this in addition to aka's comment about land that was used for farming now being used for something else.

I don't know if we could produce enough to feed the population Flick. I take your point completely about wartime and rationing but things have changed since then.
Firstly the population has grown from 48 millions in the 1940s to 61 millions today.
Secondly the amount of land available for arable farming has dropped quite drastically due to expansion of housing, road networks and industry.
Finally the number of farmers leaving farming due to the actions of the big supermarkets, recessions, etc. mean that skills built up over generations and passed down through families are being lost. In the 1930s 15% of the population worked in agriculture, now it's just 2%. When I lived in a rural area the locals could not be induced to take up farming jobs, partly due to the tough work invloved but also due to the seasonal nature of the work in offer. So seasonal workers came from Spain.
I agree with those who think we should try to reverse the trend and be more self sufficient, eat more locally grown produce and eat with the seasons. We wil still need to import but not as much.

www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/our-green-gas/how-our-green-gas-works
Green gas, Flickety.

Good posts FlicketyB - very interesting.

What is 'green' gas? The gas used in the greenhouses is natural gas from large resources under mainland Netherlands.

My local sewage farm produces methane from sewage fermentation and feeds it into the main gas grid most anaroebic digesters produce gas as well. Doesn't this count as 'green' gas?

Flickety, Ecotricity imports green gas from Holland, because there isn't any here.

I just found this:

www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Farmers-performed-heroic-role-war-effort-100/story-22082869-detail/story.html

Thank you for that post Flickety. Very interesting, I had not realised just how much food we used to import.

I think it is a variety of James Grieve apple granjura. It makes lovely pink juice - if you can rescue enough apples from the wasps!

I think I will start to pick them now - a bit early - and cook them down for the freezer, or they will just go to waste.

Our wasp traps are revolting - solid with dead wasps within 24 hours, with flies feasting on the bodies - a daily joy!

Why do we import so much veg from Holland? The Dutch government provides cheap natural gas to heat their green houses.

In the 1930s we imported two thirds of the food we eat. The growing problem of imported food being cheaper than home production began in the 1860s and was the cause of the major UK agricultural depression that lasted from the 1870s until WW2, despite a short lived boom during WW1.

In other words, there is nothing new about the current situation and we are actually producing far more of the food we eat than we did 100 years ago. So, if imports were suddenly stopped we would manage, firstly with rationing, secondly by an expansion of intensive farming and, as in wartime, ploughing up down land and moor and pouring on fertilisers. We would also all be growing our own in every public and private space we could find.

In other words, as in wartime, we would manage but would have to accept a degradation of the countryside and having to put much more effort into growing fruit and veg at a domestic level than we do now.

Might try the crispy noodles (are they imported? )