Can Britain feed itself?

According to the CIA world factbook, we produce 60% of the food we need in this country from 2% of the population. I'm sure if more land was turned over to farming and we wasted less, we'd be fine.
 
We'd be fine. We always have been. We always will be.

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I suppose sending all the immigrants back would ease our food demands.
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We'd be fine. We always have been. We always will be.

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I suppose sending all the immigrants back would ease our food demands.
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Don't take a genius to realise you need less food to feed 40 million people than you do 65 million people. If the food runs out then hopefully most of them will leave of their own accord.
 
we would survive theres plenty of land to grow crops and an ocean full of fish.

yep loads of land gardens etc. If everyone had to use their garden for grub the world would be a better place, no fuel used to transport the food ;).
 
Yes we can feed ourselves easily - farming methods are far more intensive than during the war and even if it meant turning over more land to agriculture or rationing of some sort it could be easily achieved.

The thing that would trip us up is energy / fuel - intensive farming (as well as everything else) uses loads of it and we don't have much since they shut the pits.

it's still there just need to reopen the pits. Isn't there over 100 years worth of coal in wales alone?
 
According to the CIA world factbook, we produce 60% of the food we need in this country from 2% of the population. I'm sure if more land was turned over to farming and we wasted less, we'd be fine.


Or the lard-buckets ate less. And people threw less away.


M
 
According to the CIA world factbook, we produce 60% of the food we need in this country from 2% of the population. I'm sure if more land was turned over to farming and we wasted less, we'd be fine.

Hmm - interesting. What is "the food we need" defined as though? Is it the food we consume i.e. we produce 60% of the food we consume (unlikely) or is it something else like (total world's food consumption/total world's population)*UK population?

I looked up what you were allowed to buy during WW2 rationing. It's bloody scary. 500g of meat, 100g of bacon, 1 egg, 25g of cheese (amongst other things) a week :eek: Might be worth starting a diet if only to shrink your stomach now so you can cope if they do reintroduce rationing...
 
The UK cannot fend for itself. We do not have enough oil, gas, coal, uranium etc. Without fuel, modern farming methods are pretty much defunct.

We do however have enough military strength to acquire what we need from others though, if we where ever desperate enough.
 
I looked up what you were allowed to buy during WW2 rationing. It's bloody scary. 500g of meat, 100g of bacon, 1 egg, 25g of cheese (amongst other things) a week :eek: Might be worth starting a diet if only to shrink your stomach now so you can cope if they do reintroduce rationing...

Yes but that is wartime rationing.

We do however have enough military strength to acquire what we need from others though, if we where ever desperate enough.

Well, if it came to an every-man for himself situation at this present time we wouldn't, we would most likely be those getting taken from. Also again, bringing a wartime factor into this is just meh -- I doubt the population figures would hold up when millions are being killed.
 
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Again, people with money will prevail. I refuse to undertake a communist regime, sharing my land and my country with all of the scum that live here and that have flooded in through our borders. In a food shortage, deport them all and then we will have a few million less to worry about. Desperate times would call for desperate measures, and I, for one would have to see communism (sharing land equally or whatever) take over when there are so many illegal immigrants, asylum seekers and benefit fraudsters and irresponsible peons who take on debts which they know they can never, ever pay back.
**** that.
 
Yes but that is wartime rationing.

Rationing continued until 1953 - 8 years after the war ended. Post-war Britain was essentially bankrupt - we had to export as much as possible to bring cash into the economy to pay the Americans back the money they lent us. Of course, we don't have any loans to pay back now do we? ;)
 
What does that matter? This thread was "If we had to grow 100% of our own food could we provide for the current population?" -- That is very different to "If we had to grow 100% of our own food could we provide for the current population? and please factor in a world war and its effects to this!"
 
Yes we have been producing far more food than we actually consume/export and have been destroying the excess

I really do wonder where some people get there information from... we do not produce far more than we consume. Last time I looked at the numbers we were around 60% self sufficient.
 
It'd be better I reckon, we'd use every part of an animal instead of just the flesh.
I'm talking the offal and blood. Good bits.
Mmm, black pudding...

And it would put loads of these fussy eaters in their place "mum i don't like healthy food"
well too bad you little **** you're eating it or I am.

And people would pick at chicken caracasses, use them for stock etc.

I'd miss coffee etc. though.

I'd survive, veg patch, get some chickens.

I like to eat lots, I could cut down if it was all rationed though obviously.
 
Well, if it came to an every-man for himself situation at this present time we wouldn't, we would most likely be those getting taken from. Also again, bringing a wartime factor into this is just meh -- I doubt the population figures would hold up when millions are being killed.

By whom?

With the third highest military spending in world, along with a fairly capable and mobile nuclear arsenal, we're probably capable of keeping most attackers at bay.
 
I'd rather not squat in ditches like a peasant, with peasants thankyou very much indeed. I'd just bog off to France or Spain if I were to be reduced to such a tragedy. ;)
 
doesn't the uk have a ridiculously high portion of the worlds supply of uranium as it goes? something ludicrous like 40%? Either way, we should have enough to make a pretty damned good go at building a lot of power stations.

IF we were to run out of food, take a quick vote and round up whoever gets the majority vote to be forced down the channel tunnel and let them go elsewhere and try and survive. Hopefully, unanimously, chav's would be thrown out, as they are around in such large numbers now, it would probably make all the difference. :p
 
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