so, when will you be starting stockpiling I wonder?

Jalima Fish farms in the lakes?

Apologies should be "shortages" in my above post, not "hostages"

Although thinking about it it could be that we are now all hostages to this Brexit situation.

Wonderful idea Elegran

I am appointing you Minister for Food in the new post-Brexit government, which will be composed entirely of Gransnetters.

And, of course, the more we can produce locally, the fewer trucks clogging up the roads when we need to get to our allotments and staycations.

Here is a better link in regard to the current LGV driver shortage.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/5335306/trucker-shortage-threatens-post-brexit-trade-boom-with-45000-jobs-to-fill/

Jalima1108, even if Britain grows more if its own produce, that produce still has to be moved from the growers to the supermarkets on Trucks. Therefore, it will still require the same number of trucks on Britains roads or possibly more.

If you want to know more about the practicalities of cross border transport, listen to this conversation between a man who knows what he is talking about and a man who has not got the first clue.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=55VTV9nsumE

Perhaps with distribution becoming more difficult and more expensive, smaller local shops selling products sourced from smaller-scale local enterprises will gradually take the place of the monster supermarkets, Grandad.

Maybe we will regain our enthusiasm for food from known growers which has an individual taste instead of all eating exactly the same things produced in vast factories and fields and driven hundreds of miles to stock tose supermarket shelves.

People might even learn how to make varied and delicious meals themselves from basic ingredients from their own area. It can be done. We did it for centuries.

A very valid point Elegran and one which, perhaps for different reasons, the Environmental lobby have been trying to make for some time.
We have become conditioned to ease of supply, to huge lorries and huge supermarkets with all the ramifications of logistics - lorries clogging up the motorways, air miles for out of season food, small companies and artisan producers going to the wall because they can’t compete. Was all that to support low prices and cheap supplies?
It seems to me we are paying a heck of a price for “cheap”.

Cheap food can be very expensive in the long term.

I don't think we grow enough food to be self sufficient enough to realise your dream, Elegran.

I think that an abrupt return to the 50s with only seasonal foodstuffs available would be a culture shock too far for the generations who are used to buying out of season foods. It could cause problems...

Grandad1943
In your first link the managers of Sainsbury's and the Co-op said: * there were no problems with supplies*
From your second link I would suggest that haulage companies recognise the skill of driving an HGV and pay them accordingly. These skilled men have had the pee taken out of them for years, and not helped in any way by someone taking the job for half the pay.

Wonder if we will have the black market as we did in WW2 and some years after !

Elegran with every respect to your post a 12:42 today, but i believe that it is just wishful thinking.

How much extra would it cost for the many hundreds of families just about managing in Britain today to buy all their groceries at local convenience stores rather than supermarkets???

Also with the majority of both parents working to "make ends meet" where indeed would the time for such shopping come from?

Jalima1108, even if Britain grows more if its own produce, that produce still has to be moved from the growers to the supermarkets on Trucks. Therefore, it will still require the same number of trucks on Britains roads or possibly more.

If all the local golf courses are turned into allotments, we can get to them on our bicycles Grandad and bring back the strings of onions etc in the panniers.

Although I did notice that the French onion seller I used to see at a local market with his bicycle and strings of onions had a rather large estate car parked down the road full of the rest of his supplies of onions.

It could cause problems...
There could be riots if there are no strawberries at Christmas

It would be interesting to know if food would be more expensive if produced locally to where it is sold - perhaps the higher costs would be offset by the reduced transport costs.

Jalima and Elgran whilst your suggestions regarding the conversion of golf courses into allotments and fish farms are indeed very good, I think you are overlooking one important factor "the golfer him or herself" these people are simply not amenable to their hallowed ground being used for such purposes, the few I've spoken to don't seem to acknowledge the urgency of the problems we will be facing.

As it is I'm trying to prepare our home bunker with the supplies we will need, making sure the mung beans don't abut the tins of spam in deference to the vegetarians in the extended family. I'm impeded by a bloody great set of golf clubs and electric trolly plus other golfing paraphernalia that is taking up precious storage space for non perishable food and toilet rolls, and yes has anyone factored those into prospective shortages I wonder Once I reach full capacity, I'm concerned I won't have room for my small table that we were instructed to get under should the button be pressed as prescribed by some previous government, but nevertheless sound advice I imagine. It does occur to me that maybe the EU itself could join the long list of hostile nations who may wish to nuke as of next year, but maybe our annihilation could be achieved in a far less destructive way by simply with holding vital exports such as Danone yogurts, Belgian Chocolates, Brie, Salami etc, It's all very worrying and under the circumstances, a strong table to climb under is a must, so the golf clubs will just have to go once I get round to stockpiling the tinned Snook

Terribull these 'resistant golfers' will be given picks and shovels and ordered to work under my new regime. I may, if fuel is available, allowed them to use petrol rotovators to speed up the process.

Any green turf will be piled up to make compost.

Interesting indeed, Jalima, but my point is that we don't have enough domestic capacity to produce enough food to feed our population. We couldn't do it during WW2 (when the population was smaller) without rationing and that was with every inch of formerly 'non productive' land turned over to food production wherever possible.

tinned Snook
are these leftovers from WW2?

petra, all the supermarkets are stating that there is no problem with their supply chains when as people are reporting there very clearly is. In my view, the supermarkets are saying that to forestall any panic buying taking place as we all know how that can rapidly feed on itself.

In regards to the LGV driver shortage, it is not the rate of pay that is the major problem these days, it is the legislation surrounding the job and the 100% monitoring of everything they do that is causing so many to leave the profession at the present time.

I think the average age of an LGV driver is now fifty-five and steadily going up. Many younger persons who join the industry to train as drivers leave the profession within two years due to the above.

If it becomes more difficult and expensive for the supermarkets to get supplies onto the shelves from far away, the cost of buying from small shops could become more competitive.

If it is going to take 50 years, as has been predicted, to get back to "civilisation as we know it", then all kinds of changes may take place in how everyone lives.

There may be an increase in individual enterprise - growers selling more at the gate or taking smaller quantities themselves to small shops, vacant ground in cities being developed as market gardens, new estates having allotments included as a matter of course, new crops being grown here which were previously imported, new growing methods which utilise ground previously thought unproductive.

The TV chefs may stop demonstrating international recipes which involve ingredients brought in from all over the globe and start showing how to cook with native ingredients, (or just how to cook, full stop) It may become more common to only have set meals and not to graze all day on snacks.

We do need legislation though, for safety reasons; the new directives came from the EU itself.

As of the 10th September 2009, all newly qualified HGV drivers who wish to drive professionally will require a Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (Driver CPC) as per EU Directive 2003/59.
www.drivershortage.co.uk/training/driver-cpc.html

During the years of wartime supply shortages and rationing, it was thought antisocial and unpatriotic to waste food (or anything else). That has been out of fashion for a long time, but one of the possible changes is that it may return. Those of us who have never changed our attitude will be in the right mode at last.

There may be an increase in individual enterprise - growers selling more at the gate or taking smaller quantities themselves to small shops, vacant ground in cities being developed as market gardens, new estates having allotments included as a matter of course, new crops being grown here which were previously imported, new growing methods which utilise ground previously thought unproductive.

So back to a WW2 scenario! In a country which doesn't have the physical capacity to produce food for the entire population.

I'm sorry but [facepalm]