It has rained a lot in the past eighteen months, with summer being cold and grey, and what has felt like an eternal autumn/winter this year already. Farmers have warning us for weeks and months but people, and the government, refuse to acknowledge the issue because we have never known a crisis like this. We won’t know it until it is too late to do anything. The alarm bells are sounding… When the alarms stop I have trouble sleeping I got so used to them now…
The United Kingdom is facing dire food shortages, forcing prices to skyrocket, and experts predict this is only the beginning.
What’s happening?
According to a report by The Guardian, extreme weather is wreaking havoc on crops across the region. England experienced more rainfall during the past 18 months than it has over any 18-month period since record-keeping began in 1836.
Because the rain hasn’t stopped, many farmers have been unable to get crops such as potatoes, carrots, and wheat into the ground. “Usually, you get rain but there will be pockets of dry weather for two or three weeks at a time to do the planting. That simply hasn’t happened,” farmer Tom Allen-Stevens told The Guardian.
Farmers have also planted fewer potatoes, opting for less weather-dependent and financially secure crops. At the same time, many of the potatoes that have been planted are rotting in the ground.
“There is a concern that we won’t ever have the volumes [of potatoes] we had in the past in the future,” British Growers Association CEO Jack Ward told The Guardian. “We are not in a good position and it is 100% not sustainable,” Ward added.
Why is it important?
English farmers aren’t alone — people are struggling to grow crops worldwide because of extreme weather.
Dry weather in Brazil and heavy rain in Vietnam have farmers concerned about pepper production. Severe drought in Spain and record-breaking rain and snowfall in California have made it difficult for farmers to cultivate olives for olive oil. El Niño and rising temperatures cut Peru’s blueberry yield in half last year. Everyone’s favorite drinks — coffee, beer, and wine — have all been impacted by extreme weather.
According to an ABC News report, the strain on the agriculture industry will likely continue to cause food prices to soar.
If these were just isolated events, farmers could more easily adapt — bad growing seasons are nothing new. The problem is that rising temperatures are directly linked to the increasing amount of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have burned dirty energy sources such as coal, oil, and gas, which release a significant amount of those gases. Our climate is changing so drastically that the 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the last decade.
“As climate change worsens, the threat to our food supply chains — both at home and overseas — will grow,” Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit analyst Amber Sawyer told The Guardian.
What can we do about it?
“Fortunately, we know many ways we can make the food system more resilient while reducing food emissions. The biggest opportunity in high-income nations is a reduction in meat consumption and exploration of more plants in our diets,” said Dr. Paul Behrens, an associate professor of environmental change at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
If we replace a quarter of our meat consumption with vegetables, we could cut around 100 million tons of air pollution yearly. It may seem strange to suggest eating more vegetables with the decline in crop production. However, reducing the land and water used for animal agriculture and diverting those resources to growing more produce would drastically help the declining food supply.
Growing our own food is also a great way to reduce our reliance on store-bought produce, and it can save you hundreds of dollars a year at the grocery store. [Yahoo]
Hey friends, it’s time to wake up!
If a few more people choose to support my work, I could expose more lies, root out more corruption, and call out more hypocrites. So, if you can afford it, please support my endeavor by either using PAYPAL or the DonorBox below (PAYPAL & Credit Cards / Debit Cards accepted)…
If you are a crypto fanatic, I do now accept crypto donations:
BTC: 1AjhUJM6cy8yr2UrT67iGYWLQNmhr3cHef (Network: Bitcoin) USDT: 0x490fe5d79d044a11c66c013e5b71305af0a76c1b (Network: Etherum ERC20)
You should join my newsletter to get a daily compilation of different breaking news, pictures and videos… YOU WILL LOVE IT!
Thank you,
Manuel
Sunny has it right. More Cattle and Sheep grazing in the U.K. means more food. Chickens OTOH need grain for battery production, grain suffers if it gets too moldy, or poor root development. One “bad” year is not the end of the world, but people need to THINK a bit and solve problems. Wheat can be imported and seed not planted saved for a hopefully better year ahead..seed Potatoes can be grown in barrels for next year as well.
Well we see another supposedly educated professor show stupidity.Animals not only produce meat milk eggs hides they produce waste that becomes manure.You know fertilizer.Allowed to age a bit and it also acts as a soil conditioner rebuilder.Rather than sitting in pits possibly contaminating the water supply.
Chicken farms in high rain humidity areas are enclosed
They also have solid roofed screened in outdoor runs.This could be adapted to cows.Wont be cheap as dirt but is doable.Note they are working on a minicow mainly for milk I think.This combined with suggestion above is totally achievable.