Momentum are getting stronger

There is a lot of doom-mongering going on, which achieves nothging. We effing NEED optimism. Without optimism we have had it. The more wailing there is about disaster, the more discouraged everyone gets until we might just as well pull out the bathplug under the country and let it sink without trace.

I don't mean sticking our heads in the sand and saying "Problems? I see no problems." I mean seeing the problems and believing that we can find ways to solve them.

We need to believe that we can come to acceptable terms with the EU. renegotiate all those trade deals with non-EU countries that we took for granted and will be torn up, re-establish neglected trade routes and take our place as sole trader instead of part of a partnership. We need to believe that employers and employees can deal fairly with one another and that education and medicine are important.

Not that we are going to hell in a handcart. Because if we believe it, that is what will happen.

I can't see any evidence of the EU playing silly buggers

I will send you some beetroot, parsnips, beans and peas etc djen; tomatoes too and lots of courgettes if you like.

I can't supply tofu though.
Bramble jelly?

I know elegran I sharpened my degree on that sort of knowledge.

But you mentioned subsistence farming as if it would fill the gap once leaving the EU and I just hinted that perhaps that wasn't such a good wheeze.

You don't seem to be considering how we will achieve the export of these " cash crops" although strictly speaking it isn't but I'm happy to go along with that description.

Preserving fruit takes sugar, Jalima. One of the best uses for it.

Well, we are in it. When you are in the quicksand it doesn't really matter who misread the map, the priority is to get the hell out of it.

It certainly does. except that it can hardly be said to contribute to the nation's nutrition
But I did need it for my jelly; stocking the store cupboard just in case and wondering whether or not to fill the freezers in case the electricity goes off too.

Bread and home-made jam was a staple during WW2 apparently, according to DM.

Well, we could have a joined-up policy and everything in place for a smooth transfer - if we are allowed to set it all up ready to sign and no-one starts playing silly buggers, excuse the language please.
However, silly buggers could be the order of the day to deter anyone else in the EU thinking of taking the same path.

A joined up policy would have been not to have got into this bloomin' mess in the first place [imo]]]]]

What are you on about? (to copy a response I learnt from dj)

Primrose and I exchanged pleasantries about farming collectives, hoarded tinned food and scratching a living from the dust with no chance of producing anything to sell so as to buy anything we can't grow. That was after it was claimed that growing sugar-beet would add nothing to the nation's nutrition.

That was turned into "We will all be starving", and posts thought subsistence farming was being claimed as good, and want us to name who draws the short straw to go without. What kind of logic produces these non-sequiteurs?

Here is some news - cash crops DO add to nutrition, though not directly. Exporting one thing lets you buy something else. One exporting industry seeing light at the end of the tunnel is good. More industries seeing more light wouild be better, and a joined-up policy of encouraging and helping those industries into an unknown future would be better still.

Yes, have a go at me as usual durhamjen!

Anyone live in a flat? No food for you then. Anyone live with a tiny garden No food for you then. Anyone disabled? No food for you then

We are subsistence farming!!! Nothing spare for anyone else.

Do people actually know what subsistence farming means?

Subsistence farming is good, is it?
I assume lots of people are going back to the land, including your family, Ana.

What about bread?

Well said Elegran.

Can vegetarians and vegans be first in the queue for imported veg?

Perhaps if May does a bad deal for EU/UK citizens living elsewhere, all the British farmers who went to Spain to grow celery, tomatoes and peppers all year round will return.
With climate change, it might be easier here now.

So who will you choose to go without in the supply of food?

Subsistence farming with no cash crops, Primrose.

It heartens me to see an industry which is clearly looking to the future with optimism, and planning their export strategy under whatever new conditions emerge, instead of weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth with cries of "Woe woe, thrice woe" (pinched that from another poster) The can-do spirit will be needed more in the next few years than it has been for decades.

You would almost think that some posters are disappointed to hear that spirit.

Maybe we'll all have to join the local farming collective while living off the tins of baked beans we've been hoarding.
On the plus side, it might reduce the obesity problem in the UK.

And don't forget elegran the appropriate trade negotiations have to be struck, which of course can't be started until Mch 19, each trade negotiation taking a minimum of 28months. If a single country objects who is also producing sugar than we will be in for a very rough ride. We don't have the clout of the EU behind us then.

Providing there is sufficient food to go round and at the right price for the poor

The money brought into the country by trading beet sugar will contribute to the nation's nutrition.

So, GG, the excursion via ducks, lemonade and sugar did lead to a positive and interesting detail that might otherwise have not emerged.

I wonder how many other commodities have a similar story to tell?

It certainly does. except that it can hardly be said to contribute to the nation's nutrition.

I had no idea Baggs. Live and learn.