Today's discussion about the news

"Source: Defra Agriculture in the United Kingdom (AUK) 2020

The production to supply ratio is estimated to be 60% for all food in 2020 and 76% for indigenous type food (that which can be commercially grown domestically). Actual consumption of UK-produced food is closer to 54%, as a part of UK production is exported."

Being more self-sufficient would surely put the UK in a more vulnerable position when home-grown crops fail (likely with climate change). Global food supply is far more reliable, as only certain regions will experience crop failures at any one time. I’d imagine a balanced approach (as we already have) is the best way to ensure food security.

Since the UK already produces 76% of crops that we can actually grow, how much more could we produce without causing further environmental catastrophe? 🌲🌲🌲

There's an increasing need to engineer more resistant staple crops, since resistance has been bred out in favour of yield. These new hardy varieties could take many years to produce and scale up. Also, these new crops will need time to adapt to their environment in order to start producing high yields.

An article I read recently was advocating (as an insurance policy) growing South America (Andean) crops alongside our staples, due to their hardy nature. If one crop fails, another would (hopefully) survive.

Perhaps the best way to ensure food security, would be to change what we eat. Fewer livestock farms and changing to precision fermentation (already perfected with dairy), invest in lab grown meat. More land to grow crops and rewild, lower co2 production and more absorption, clean rivers and a return in wildlife.

Wasting less food would be a thing too.

At least that's looking at opportunities and resilience options. RC's approach is simply to say "It'll be fine", despite climate change, despite the threat of political upheaval, despite the friction at the EU border. At least the latter is something we could have some say in. The rest of it... well, let's keep our fingers crossed, eh?

Not in practice, as it has increased friction from the main food importing nations.

Yum!

You guys are arguing that Brexit has not made food better in the UK, whereas BB is pointing out that it has given us more options. Both can be correct.

It's made the bottom of the barrel wider.

I'm not asking about possibilities. I'm asking about reality. Having the option is useless if you don't intend to exercise it at some point.

Given I grew up within 400m of NIAB and had friends parents working there, I’d be surprised if they didn’t have some ready to go.

Certainly caused enough consternation at the time.

The bollocking we got for climbing into one of their fields was something else

Per one of my earlier posts, I was just pushing to see how much slack the Cake Stoppers would give Starmer for making a palpably untrue statement. And the answer is "a lot". If that's your view then fine. It just seems to suggest that the moral compasses are collectively in need of a little calibration. But equally, from my perspective, as I'm being steam-rollered by a relentless tide of "slack cutting" maybe I'm in the wrong. I've always taken the view that if you're starting from a position of not stating the truth then you're on sticky ground. But maybe that's why I'm an accountant rather than a politician!

Both Starmer and Sunak have found a way to let it go.

Was always a point scoring storm in a teacup.

It wasn't even the biggest thing he did last week on which to criticise him. I'm really struggling to see why you are going for it in such a big way. As far as things on which to guage the leeway we're prepared to give him, saying someone was present who wasn't at that exact moment but was shortly afterwards barely registers compared to the outright lies and deliberate misuse of statistics we've seen from the various leaders across the current Government. It's hardly a 'gotcha' moment.

I think the suggestion that a difference of a few minutes and metres represents an attempt to mislead is pretty silly. Especially when we're not exactly short of material criticisms of Starmer.

I'd accept the "a few minutes and a few metres" isn't significant argument if you were talking about success or otherwise of making an agreed rendezvous in the mountains, in fog, with just an old school map and compass. But in respect of binary claims, I'm a big fan of not saying what you don't know to be true, unless you flag it up clearly as an opinion / best guess.

But as was observed up-thread, Sunak and Starmer have moved on so this is my last comment on the subject beyond observing that another reason why I'd be cr*p as a politician is that I like following an argument through to the end, whereas politicians seem to like changing their current favourite argument as often as Imelda Marcos changed her shoes.

I thought I was bad at getting bogged down in the details of a discussion 😁. Granted "in this building" would have been more accurate than "in this chamber". Not sure it changes the point.