UK government reportedly drawing up 'worst case scenario' plans for food shortages
Posted by Ok-Web-2657@reddit | PrepperIntel | View on Reddit | 80 comments
tr0028@reddit
More public gardens and allotments, make it easier to keep chickens in gardens (if you have space), loosen up regulations on people selling their wares (bread, eggs, baked goods).
No_Branch_5083@reddit
I have chickens in my urban garden. More eggs than I can eat, and they will eat food scraps.
tr0028@reddit
A small concession like that can relieve so much pressure on people. Obviously still needs a license and not appropriate for all people but it could help so many people.
DieselPunkPiranha@reddit
Grow vegetables like peppers and cherry tomatoes on your window sell. Potatoes on your balcony. We need to return to subsistence farming as much as possible as quickly as possible.
timewiththat@reddit
I’m in the UK, and this article is also doing the rounds on non-prepper UK subreddits today. (Mainly because it’s the first time the media has openly acknowledged what’s coming down the line.) The general consensus is to make jokes about it and be very blasé. People are in total denial. With the odd switched on person scattered amongst them.
Psychological_Fun172@reddit
Normalcy Bias is very prevalent and resistant to reality. I don't remember the source, but I think it has been estimated that about 80% of people in a crisis just don't react at all. Its like that video of the tsunami, and all the people just milling about the beach in vacation mode as the water receded and clearly indicated something was about to happen. I've seen it myself, when we had a small fire at one of the places I worked at and everyone was just in total denial that it was a real fire and kept insisting it must just be a mistake and tried to keep working. It was only when the manager told them to evacuate that they actually did.
Of the remaining 20% of people in a crisis, 10% panic and do the wrong things while another 10% are actually capable of taking effective action. In my own experience, I've been in both 10%s at one time or another. It is very easy to go Condition Black if you aren't psychologically prepared for it, but it is also possible to remain in control and think rationally. Training helps immensely, as does meditation and awareness in general. There is no panacea, however.
FuzzyJuggernaut7455@reddit
Most of the comments about this article, on other subs are along the lines of "now morons will go out and start buying chicken and pork to freeze" etc.
Well, yes, that would be an entirely rational reaction.
Also, I feel that the Government 'leaks' to us what is going to happen, ahead of time, to soften the blow and try to spread out the buying, rather than an all at once 'big bang' panic.
bomboclawt75@reddit
Every society is three meals away from revolution- the government should be well aware of this and not allow us to starve or pay through the nose for basic food.
People, will, act, accordingly.
Expensive_Chart_8158@reddit
Expect the US who will lay down and take the famine dildo up thier ass and beg for more.
GreatBigJerk@reddit
I don't know about that, if there's one thing Americans are good at, it's pounding back an ungodly amount of calories.
HIMBO-Art@reddit
Yeah people might start to get really upset once the sweet treat pipeline is disrupted
Collapse_is_underway@reddit
You mean the place with the most excessive and trash food lifestyle ? The most sugar-addicted population on this planet ? Oh yeah, I'm sure it'll go smoothly and people will lay down and not go absolutely batshit insane :p
Th3Gr3yGh0st@reddit
The dildo of consequences is rarely lubed…
SquirrelyMcNutz@reddit
And often covered in sand.
Firefly10886@reddit
sandpaper
alwaysleafyintoronto@reddit
It's ok they can buttchug high fructose corn syrup and inject peptides.
4Yk9gop@reddit
I wanted to detect, but I detected no lies.
jiggscaseyNJ@reddit
Short term pain long term gain lol.
AliceCode@reddit
Do you have any evidence of this claim? Because I've seen a lot of people saying it, but with how people are, I find it hard to believe.
FacebookNewsNetwork@reddit
We’ve been hearing about potential famines for years now and they haven’t materialized. We really need to get the media to stop this type of speculative journalism.
Hellchron@reddit
Sudan and Gaza both have famine occurring right now
Canadian_Kartoffel@reddit
Food stress and high inequality were major contributing factors to the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria.
Famines normally don't materialize when they are identified because all parties involved are smart enough to try to limit their impact ASAP and don't just watch them happen.
With the death of USAID and fertilizer shortages it won't always turn out good.
mapdumbo@reddit
They don’t mean, like, in this very moment we’re 3 away; they mean that three days (the original quote is 9 meals) where people have genuinely no access to food is enough to collapse a society, or at least temporarily end its coherence
AliceCode@reddit
I know what they mean. I'm asking where the evidence for this claim is. There have been tons of famines where no one revolted and they just died.
PaleHeretic@reddit
I think it's less literal in the sense that the populace forms up into battalions and marches on the capital so much as the social contract simply dissolves.
JudgmentUnited5297@reddit
The modern version has a huge range. There are people so far down the learned helplessness path that they're just doordashing every meal. Others have plenty of random processed food but little protein.
nelsonalgrencametome@reddit
I think the original quote is 9 meals away but I don't recall where it's from (3 days no food).
AnomalyNexus@reddit
I'm in the UK and have been ramping up prep a bit. Think rice & beans.
...but tbh don't think chances of anything particularly serious happening are high.
The average UK life is incredibly comfortable compared much of 3rd world so you can drop a fair bit without any real hardship. Inconvenience isn't hardship.
Still...glad gov is thinking about it. I'd rather have that and not need it than the reverse
ExtensionMoose1863@reddit
How much do the memories of the blitz and WW2 in general impact the public perception and how this is covered there?
No_Branch_5083@reddit
My grandmother was born in 1943, so grew up in the post-war years of rationing and deprivation. Her childhood was supported by growing their own vegetables, hunting rabbits, buying shares in pigs, and making do with very little. She is still quite frugal in that sense, loathe to waste food and averse to buying things that have been shipped from elsewhere in the world.
She clearly remembers when she first saw a banana.
I'm trying to learn more about her childhood whilst I can, I feel like it was a much more sustainable lifestyle. My daughter is used to eating strawberries every week, which is really quite unnatural when you think about it for a minute.
ExtensionMoose1863@reddit
100%. what we accept as normal now is completely outside of the natural availability cycles for food. This is the first time in human history that I'm able to buy mangos in december in north america lol
hiraeth555@reddit
It’s basically a modern foundation myth- it’s taught multiple times through school, and many Millennials and older will have grandparents that were children during the blitz, so it is deeply ingrained.
Nemisis_the_2nd@reddit
Its a quickly dying memory, though. People are aware of it, but Im not sure anyone born after about 1990 actually comprehend what it was like.
Professional-Art8449@reddit
I mean I was born in 92 and my grandparents and elders lived through the depression and fought in WW2. My partners nan lived through the blitz and I had many conversations with her about it.
Still the only people I think that could fully comprehend what it was like are the people who lived through it.
I would maybe bump that up to the 00s.
hiraeth555@reddit
Yeah I found an old primary school report I wrote where I had interviewed my three living grandparents about the Blitz- all three had very different experiences, my grandfather’s the most detailed as he was the oldest, but due to being pretty deaf was not allowed to fight as a soldier.
I was born in 94, so I have some general recollections of hearing first hand accounts.
My partner’s nan sang in her village on stage at the end of the war as a small child.
I doubt many people even 5 years younger than me would have similar.
AnomalyNexus@reddit
Afraid you’re asking someone too young and too born elsewhere to answer about the British WW2 legacy.
Overall the average crowd here is roughly equivalent to what you’d see in a US Walmart. Not big on deep history driven shopping habits in sight. It’s more about whether coke vanilla is in stock
ExtensionMoose1863@reddit
That actually answers my question perfectly. Same in the US with the great depression... It's not really in the public memory anymore beyond the history books.
I wasn't sure if the UK had held on to that knowledge more because of how painful it was
I guess we just have to find out for ourselves every generation or two 🤦
Pontiacsentinel@reddit
JFC we have not even held onto memory long enough to remember the Civil Rights Era and Vietnam here in the US.
Collapse_is_underway@reddit
Yeah we tell ourselves that to reassure ourselves "We got a lot of money in the banks, we're not a 3rd world country, etc.".
I tought about Switzerland once like that. Now, I understand that most of the claims I hear are bullshit. 50% food independant ? Ahah, it drops more like to 0-5% without the imports of various products and food and diesel.
And people still cannot fathom to imagine that we need to have a massive chunk of the population to go back to farming. The debates remain about "industrial vs bio" and ignore other forms that are regenerative, can be done with what you have in your territory but requires much more people (and a lot of smaller farms, not a single massive one).
But well there is indeed no sense of urgency. I truely hope we get mass plane cancellations because no kerosene in 1-2 months, so that people start realizing that we're leaving the era of "always more" and we're entering the "always less". It would be a good start, massive job loss in tourism sector and the need to relocate those people.
But even if I followed collapse for 20 years, I remain too optimistic at times. Anyhow, we'll get to experience it in the next months, because it doesn't look like the Middle-East will suddently turn peaceful.
demonslayercorpp@reddit
They literally tried to suppress a climate study earlier this year that was released because of the freedom of information act.
In it it states that the UK WILL NOT be able to feed its citizens if there is geopolitical conflict over food and all of the world ecosystems are dying.
Brexit will kill them
Nemisis_the_2nd@reddit
What is crazy to me is that so many people are in absolute denial over this. I've been banging this particular drum for about a year now (alongside concerns that population increases due to immigration will make any problems worse), and everyone responds with lines about how we shouldn't try to be aiming for autarky, propping up Malthus ghost as a straw man, or declaring me right-wing and therefore safe to ignore.
Nemisis_the_2nd@reddit
Putting this as a seperate comment:
Basically, the UK has pretty good food security thanks to well established supply chains, but we import about 40% of the total national calorie intake and produce the rest domestically. The problem is that we have really bad soil degradation and need fertilizer to keep up production, as do our main sources of food imports. If our importers cant produce as much food, or we cant get enough fertilizer, food production and availability quickly drops. It puts the UK at the mercy of supply chain disruption, and even small problems can have outsized effects.
I also mention immigration because the UKs birth rate is on par with deaths, but the population is still growing due to immigration. In any sort of crisis situations the UK would have two problems. The first is feeding the people already here, and adding more to that will naturally make that harder. The second is that a lot of left-wing parties are currently advocating for allowing mass immigration beyond current, or even Johnson-era, levels. In a crisis, we would likely see a massive influx of refugees due to their policies and it would make an already precarious situation into a catastrophe for residents and refugees alike.
hurfery@reddit
Wtf are these loony brits so in love with mass immigration for?
Wrong-Ad-1935@reddit
If you are interestedin an answer: An aging population means pensions alone cost £178bn a year, over half the entire welfare budget and around 11% of all government spending. Add to that 8% of government spending going purely on debt interest, and we are still running a deficit on top of all this while the budget has already been cut significantly since ~2010.
Migration is effectively what keeps the country solvent. We don’t have enough people having kids to fund everything and pensions are basically the only thing that hasn’t been touched. If migration ended tomorrow we would be forced into a very difficult conversation about pensions, the NHS and wider government spending that nobody in Westminster is remotely prepared to have.
Not saying i am pro mass-migration but this is your answer.
No_Branch_5083@reddit
Yeah, basically nobody wants to deal with the unavoidable reality that the whole infinite growth thing is literally impossible. Immigration lets them kick the can down the road for the next generation to deal with.
Nemisis_the_2nd@reddit
The other reply answered the exonomic question: that we need immigration to stay solvent in the face of an ageing population and a refusal to address the budget black hole that is the state pension.
That said, there are two social reasons as well:
Johnson, as the leader of the then main anti-immigrant party at the time, allowed one of the single highest periods of immigrarion in British history, as a way to ~~suppress wages~~ limit inflation. The idea was that more job competition would suppress wages, therefore break the wage-price spiral that was happening at the time and keeping inflation high.
Coming from the political left, its a combination of two things. One is a level of empathy and demand for support for the less fortunate and well off that has turned into a virtue signal, where you constantly have to exceed the other most empathetic person to survive politically. Its a toxic cycle that forces people to start adopting unrealistic positions or else be considered as heartless and cruel.
Then you have the tankie mindset in that the UK (and europe/the US) are evil imperialists and that the residents need to spend every waking moment atoning for sins of the fathers. Part of this involves uncritically throwing open doors to immigrants.
No_Possible_7108@reddit
Sounds like Soylent green is what's for dinner /s
Loud_Flatworm_4146@reddit
Given the report they tried to suppressed, I doubt they will be upfront with the British public.
Frequent-Ad-6206@reddit
Nothing to do with Brexit. This has been decades in the making
Mass immigration, 30m people who shouldn’t be here
Treating farmers like shit
Gutting infrastructure
Extreme incompetence in nearly all political circles
demonslayercorpp@reddit
I think telling all the countries they were aligned with to fuck off and ruining the supply chain access doesnt help
Nemisis_the_2nd@reddit
The title makes things sound worse than they are preparing for, but it is still going to be really bad across the board.
The other issue that's not getting much discussion is the incoming wave of food poverty. Food is likely to be available, but prices are going to surge and the worst off in society are going to be priced out of eating. 2022 saw out prices for domestically produced food rise by about 15% and imported by about 30%. We also import about 40% of our food, but this might go up since we depend so much on imported fertilizer from checks notes the straight of Hormuz.
Rustie_J@reddit
StayRevolutionary364@reddit
Which could mean absolutely anything 🤷♀️
Rustie_J@reddit
u/Nemisis_the_2nd was pointing out that inability to afford food might end up being the bigger issue than sheer physical shortages. I was agreeing by pointing out that the Horseman Famine carries a scale, the kind that would've been used in a food market, & specifically says that the relative luxury goods - olive oil & wine - were to go untouched.
I wasn't saying that I believe in Revelations in any literal sense. I'm saying that famines are often about price, & that the rich often go untouched while the poor can't afford staples. That it's been that way as long as there's been civilization.
StayRevolutionary364@reddit
Then why not just say that?
Rustie_J@reddit
I kinda thought the quote spoke for itself, seeing as it was a reply to someone talking about that exact subject, especially since there was even a picture. But perhaps I expect too much.
StayRevolutionary364@reddit
Price rises are essentially soft rationing.
YogurtclosetIcy5286@reddit
As some (presumably American) wag said it wont matter because British people still eat like they are in the blitz and the battle of the atlantic.
No-Material3128@reddit
I find it highly unlikely that any American knows what the blitz and the Battle of the Atlantic actually were.
Terminated_Entropy@reddit
Blitz, or blitzkreig as it is known was when German ran bombing missions over UK territory such as London during World War 2.
I am not as familiar with details regarding Battle of the Atlantic but also assume it comes from the same time period and involves German U2 boats targeting vessels?
Source: American whose grandfather served in the Pacific theater as an airplane mechanic during World War 2.
ironypoisonedposter@reddit
Blitzkreig is a more general term that means "lightening war" used by germany to describe a specific tactical style of war that includes both fast-moving and surprising ground and air attacks. iirc, it was first used to describe the nazi invasion of poland. the germans didn't actually refer to their bombing campaigns in the UK as a blitzkreig, the british press borrowed the word and shortened it to "the Blitz" to describe the bombings.
melympia@reddit
Can we please agree to spell it "Blitzkrieg"? (Yes, this applies to the commenter you replied to, too.)
And while your translation is correct, it's not quite accurate. Because the "lightning" part in German does not exactly refer to the natural phenomenon as a whole, but merely its speediness.
ironypoisonedposter@reddit
Maybe you missed it but I did refer to the name referring to speed and not actual lightening: “general term that means ‘lightening war’ to describe a specific style of war . . . That includes FAST MOVING and surprising ground and air attacks.”
GetGoatedYourself@reddit
Blitz was an attempt to overwhelm parts of the UK with near daily bombings. Which can be argued part of the Battle for Britain. Which was the aerial battles between the RAF and Luftwaffle.
Battle of the Atlantic was trying to protect the convoys from U-boats as they were sinking quite alot.
YogurtclosetIcy5286@reddit
Ever seen the meme with the potatoes and minced beef sauce on a plate with a peice of buttered bread?
NoTerm3078@reddit
You'd be really really wrong about that though.
No_Possible_7108@reddit
You mean just like how brits and everyone else assume things about how Americans eat despite obesity largely being a symptom of poverty/income equality because the companies have made it so they are largely priced out of healthy foods and have to rely on cheaper addictive hyper-processed foods(there are plenty of studies talking about this for anyone skeptical)(also sorry for the mini rant)
Mushy peas and beans on toast sounds like straight up wartime food.
breadeatingmonster@reddit
So cool they have an actual government
Gil_0@reddit
Move there.
fragrant-final-973@reddit
You're in a cult.
Humble-Heart-5302@reddit
You're in a cult.
No_Possible_7108@reddit
"No u" says the Heavens Gate followers as they help themselves to a nice glass of kool aid
Humble-Heart-5302@reddit
another one
SnooRadishes8372@reddit
No_Possible_7108@reddit
We need to bring back this era if memes!
Rods-from-God@reddit
Pay me to move there
FraggleRockYaFaceOff@reddit
They won't let me
Vladmerius@reddit
Meanwhile the US government is discussing among themselves just how many of us they can starve to death while they wait out the crisis in bunkers.
Butterscotch6310@reddit
r/europe
Ok-Web-2657@reddit (OP)
Paywall removed link to the original Times article.