clear skies and food security

 
 Oh dear, the world (or Europe anyway) is sliding towards chaos!  Has a war broken out; has climate change accelerated suddenly and is  even now spiralling out of control; has a plague of Black Death proportions raced across the continent?  No, we have closed our airspace, that’s all!

How have we grown so dependent on those winged lovelies that fly amongst the clouds?  From a purely selfish perspective I can rubberneck others’ misfortunes; tut in sympathy because my dentist was stuck in Istanbul, although he is at this very moment crawling across Europe by various trains, he is still going to be overdue by a week and they are getting very busy at the dentist!  I can express horror that a friend’s work colleague has been told it will be three weeks before she can fly home from Egypt, all flights that are moving are fully booked; think fondly of Dunkirk when I hear of boats setting off to lift beleaguered tourists from foreign shores.

 

I also frown when I hear that exotic fruit is rotting in the fields in South America and Africa, I’m an elderly lady and immediate thoughts (born of the Second World War I suspect not the modern day ‘save the planet campaign’!) are can’t they be dried?  I hate waste.  I have been complaining for years about such as green beans grown in Africa and potatoes from South America to feed our desire for cheap out-of-season food.  My argument has always been to grow what’s natural in each place.  We grow fantastic beans and potatoes in this country, leave countries such as Africa and South America to grow what’s natural there which we will buy because it’s exotic.  They are doing so and we cannot buy them, we have created the market and for the moment we have failed.  Will the supermarkets pay for the rotting food?  Do they have insurance to coast them over this bad time?  Does anyone care if they lose pay and jobs?  All questions I feel will be called stupid and will remain unanswered.

 

I am very uneasy about globalisation.  Don’t get me wrong: take away my coffee, bananas and mangoes and I will be very upset; take away the chocolate and I might be healthier but I won’t like it.  We are tightly knitted to each other, too tightly for our own good here on our island.  We should be looking to the future, encouraging farmers back to the land, paying a decent price for our food.  We should be extremely worried that we import so much of our food.  Container ships will still ply the seas, the planes will fly again, but they need fuel and that is becoming increasingly insecure and with that insecurity comes our future Food Insecurity. 

 

This last week of clear skies should be a warning.  It probably won’t be.