Catastrophe this Winter?

Witzend

One positive aspect of diminished supplies of food - perhaps the obscene levels of food waste in the U.K. will decrease?

(Yes, wasting food is one of my pet fury-makers.).

I have to work close to home on this. My DH works v long hours & food-shopping seems to have developed as a hobby of his.
I buy what we need, then he goes & buys what he fancies fropm othe farm shop or Waitrose - never anything useful like milk, frequently something perishable I've already just bought from the supermarket.
We have a nice midday lunch out of his treats on the weekend, but then he's at work & won't take things for his lunch so I end up eating scotcheggs & porkpies which I'm not keen on, & expensive boughten quiches which I do make myself, just so as not to have to throw them away.
If food shortages kick in, & he keeps doing this, there's going to have to be a showdown here! He can't keep buying too much just cos he likes spending£££.

nanna8

Maybe not build on arable land and grow things instead ? Stop increasing the population until enough food is produced locally ? This applies to my country , it makes me so sick that they build on lovely arable land nonstop when they should be encouraging people to live in non arable areas which comprise most of my country . I expect it is similar in the UK. At this stage my country does actually produce enough food but it is a bit of a ticking time bomb and they just don’t consider the future at all because politicians have very short times in office now and they think short term, always.
OK Rant over.

It’s not that that’s the issue though, the UK is self sufficient for wheat, and main crop potatoes, and could be for other vegetables - if we ate seasonally and didn’t want out of season or exotic vegetables, and we didn’t have fruit like oranges and bananas.

Calendargirl

Our regional weather man has predicted a wet, mild winter ahead.

I posted this.

I wasn’t implying that it meant more food or less shortages, it was just a comment about the type of weather we might get this winter.

🌧️

HelterSkelter1

After a summer which has been a challenge, I think a challenging winter is ahead. There is not a lot individually we can do. Live within your means. Look out for others. Take care of yourself. Be sensible.
I see people in the hot sun without a hat, with very young children not shaded.
The reverse in the winter. Very young children not warmly dressed in biting winds. Sometimes I despair. But mostly I just crack on.

My philosophy too 😃

Human beings are adaptable. I remember in the seventies we got used to the electricity being turned off for a few hours on a rota basis so that everyone had some.

Food can be managed too. We had very little money when the children were small so food had to be eked out and invented ways to make food go further.

Water too could be turned off for a short time so it doesn't run out completely if droughts get worse.
We have got used to having plenty of everything but we will need to expect less when supplies dwindle.

As I get older, I think I am going the other way to lots of people.
Got ready for things that didnt happen[maybe the answer is yet].
And now lived through ups and downs of things.

We must HelterSkelter & Oreo. No choice really. Keep doing our best and be mindful of our activities including holidays and travel.
I was surprised to be asked where I had managed to park yesterday. I arrived at the Botanic gardens by bus. I haven't driven into the city centre for years.

A bit of carrot and stick to encourage sensible behaviour. Free transport for over 60s helps.

Casdon

nanna8

Maybe not build on arable land and grow things instead ? Stop increasing the population until enough food is produced locally ? This applies to my country , it makes me so sick that they build on lovely arable land nonstop when they should be encouraging people to live in non arable areas which comprise most of my country . I expect it is similar in the UK. At this stage my country does actually produce enough food but it is a bit of a ticking time bomb and they just don’t consider the future at all because politicians have very short times in office now and they think short term, always.
OK Rant over.

It’s not that that’s the issue though, the UK is self sufficient for wheat, and main crop potatoes, and could be for other vegetables - if we ate seasonally and didn’t want out of season or exotic vegetables, and we didn’t have fruit like oranges and bananas.

You've sent me down a rabbit hole now, Casdon.

According to government statistics for production as a percentage of consumption (latest figures to 2025) the UK is self sufficient in very little.

Barley, oats, milk, lamb!

There are questions to be asked of the figures given, but every other foodstuff listed falls short of 100%

What we actually use of home produced food seems quite small

^ In 2025, 58% of domestic consumption came from UK production (based on unprocessed value at farmgate), 23% from the EU and the remaining 19% from the rest of the world^

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/agriculture-in-the-united-kingdom-2025/chapter-14-the-food-chain?

Sorry, formatting failure. The percentages given for origins of imports comes from the same document,

It as much about what the UK produces because that meets demand I think MaizieD. Niche crops yield higher rewards, but obviously use land that could be used to provide staple foods. If you think about what happened in WW2, people also turned their gardens over to fruit and vegetable growing, and because much more self sufficient than we are now. It’s consumer choice that has led us down the road of eating what we fancy, rather than what is seasonal and home grown or local- it goes back hundreds, or thousands of years, we were importing spices even then.

Grammaretto

We must HelterSkelter & Oreo. No choice really. Keep doing our best and be mindful of our activities including holidays and travel.
I was surprised to be asked where I had managed to park yesterday. I arrived at the Botanic gardens by bus. I haven't driven into the city centre for years.

A bit of carrot and stick to encourage sensible behaviour. Free transport for over 60s helps.

I wish we had a reasonable bus service in our (rural) area.

Three times in the last week I have had to visit hospitals, and all in different directions.

The first of those was to our nearest big town 6 or 7 miles away, If I had taken our 'local' bus, I would have had to leave home so early that I would have got to town 2 hours before my appointment, before the shops were open, and as I hadnt to eat or drink, I couldn't have passed the time in a cafe.
Instead, OH drove me to a village 4 miles away, with a nuch better service (hourly), and I took a bus from there that got me to town only 45 mins before appt.
OH did come to pick me later, as they wouldn't have let me leave alone.

Next day, 8 miles in the other direction. I could have caught a bus at the halfway point, but for that particular route it would have not made any sense to do that.
OH still had to drive me as I might still have been within 24 hours of a sedative given the previous day.

Yesterday I had to go to a hospital further away in yet another direction - though as a visitor this time.
OH would have driven me, but firstly, he now gets quite stressed in certain situations, and secondly, he is increasingly struggling to walk any distance, and hospital parking can still require a longish walk.
I hate driving, and only do it if I absolutely have to, so I drove to the same town as we had been to on Friday and took a bus from there. An hour each way - plus the walk from the town centre to the hospital and back, of course.

At 65, I won't be eligible for a bus pass for nearly two years, so even when it is an option, it is not a cheap way to get around, even with the £3 cap.

We eat more fish than meat. We are fortunate that we know a lot of people who go sea fishing.
We have in years past gone muscle and oyster picking.
These oyster beds arnt private.
I know where there is a lot of samphire but don’t fancy picking that now 😩

In WW2 we also had rationing and a much smaller population (about 45million as opposed to nearly 70million. We still imported food.

I think that food in the future is going to be a problem if our current experience of global warming is a foretaste of what is to come. It's not just the UK, it is the regions of the world where it will be virtually impossible to grow any food. It will all have a knock on effect.

We did, you’re right. Substantial inroads were made into becoming more self sufficient than before the war though, when 70% of food was imported. There’s no doubt that we could become much more self sufficient than we are now as a nation, and for many people, through their individual efforts in gardens and allotments. We waste so much.

More than half our garden in the 1950s was used for growing fruit and vegetables and we ate what was in season. Most of our neighbours did the same.
It may be time to use our gardens for practical purposes than for show.

nanna8

Maybe not build on arable land and grow things instead ? Stop increasing the population until enough food is produced locally ? This applies to my country , it makes me so sick that they build on lovely arable land nonstop when they should be encouraging people to live in non arable areas which comprise most of my country . I expect it is similar in the UK. At this stage my country does actually produce enough food but it is a bit of a ticking time bomb and they just don’t consider the future at all because politicians have very short times in office now and they think short term, always.
OK Rant over.

"they build on lovely arable land nonstop when they should be encouraging people to live in non arable areas which comprise most of my country . I expect it is similar in the UK."

It's nothing like that in UK because our iskand is so small, crowded and our history is so different from yours. In UK there IS no land that hasn't already been used. We have to keep re-using exhausted post -industrial land whose previous use ( coalmining, heavy industry) make it unsuitable for building homes or growing food. . Climate change, erosion and contamination makes previously habitable areas too dangerous to build homes, factories.
The demands of farming have barely changed; crops need to be grown where the water is, where people and machines have access to tend and harvest them.

We tried pushing people to the very edge of land and sustainable survival in order to put animals on it to make more meat/wool/ money; the Clearances . We tried crowding all the workers into cities and tiny spaces right next door to their industry, until the industries died.

Unlike Australia, we don't have some a huge empty untouched area of virgin land out the back, that's never been used before, just waiting for a new idea...

Well, this summer's weather has already led to the destruction of my cabbages, and the Brussels look unlikely to survive long enough to provide us with a winter crop this year either.

The heat itself hasn't killed them, but it has led to a plague of flea beetles, the likes of which I haven't seen for years, which had done enormous damage. Neither my enviromesh netting nor companion planting could keep them at bay!

Plus my beetroot have grown so much quicker than normal that they are going to have to be eaten (or processed) quite soon, instead of being left in the ground to harvest fresh over winter, which is what I normally do.

I haven't been able to transplant the leeks yet because the earth is so hot and dry, so unless the weather changes they might be another winter veg that doesn't make it.

But so far the carrots and parsnips look OK- above ground level, anyway - so I've got my fingers firmly crossed that they at least dont succumb to the extreme weather.

I've grown my own veg long enough to know that even in a 'good' year, there will almost always always be something that doesnt grow as well as usual.
BUT, with the type of weather extremes that are becoming ever-more frequent (not just hot and / or dry summers - heavy rain all winter is bad too), I fear it might not be possible for us to grow/harvest as much from our gardens or allotments as people could in the past.

My friend on the Western Isles grows vegetables in a large polycrub. These are very popular as they protect from the wind and icy cold. My friends have water butts to collect rainwater too.

My friends have water butts to collect rainwater too

I think many of us have several water butts, but no rain to fill them!

"Unlike Australia, we don't have some a huge empty untouched area of virgin land out the back, that's never been used before, just waiting for a new idea..."

Unlike Great Britain, about 70% of Australia is arid desert or bushland, unsuitable for agriculture. A small proportion is protected rainforest. People tend to live where there is rainfall.

So, apart from small areas of mining, I'm not sure what the land could be used for or how large populations could survive without water.

There’s so much to worry about in daily life and so many challenges that I absolutely refuse to spend a minute thinking about ‘what maybes’ in the future If there are food shortages we will learn to eat what we have. The body was fitter when there was food rationing than it is now, when everyone dashes for the nearest kebab or fish and chips or takeaway
We will grow our own or maybe if not able, we will join a community that we can buy off others locally We will adapt because we always do.
Worrying about our kids or grandkids lives in the future is pointless too, we won’t be here to see any of it, and they as intelligent being will work with what they are given They are no less intelligent than every other era that has had to adapt and ‘find a way’
Now I m off to eat a vegi breakfast with some friends and then a dip in the filthy North Sea and home to sit and watch Emmerdale and Corrie I have a bracingly interesting life

"Human beings are adaptable. I remember in the seventies we got used to the electricity being turned off for a few hours on a rota basis so that everyone had some."

That was for different reasons. The electorate then voted for Margaret Thatcher and look where that has got us. Privatised transport, energy companies etc and worst of all, privatised water companies.

That was a Labour government I’m pretty sure.

Jim Callaghan and the”What crisis’ (misquote I believe)

Yes, it was James Callaghan's Government, perhaps I wasn't clear.
"Now is the winter of our discontent!"

That then resulted in a victory for Margaret Thatcher and the Tories.

Lathyrus3

That was a Labour government I’m pretty sure.

Jim Callaghan and the”What crisis’ (misquote I believe)

The electricity power cuts happened under the Heath (tory) government in early 1972 during the miners strike. Coal was the principle fuel for power stations then. Miners' pay had fallen behind that of other industrial workers.

Not the Callaghan Labour government.