Clarkson spot on again?

Hopefully this will copy across from this morning’s Sunday Times:

I do tend to go through life with a general sense that everything will be all right in the end. Yes, we are told every 20 minutes that soon the Earth will be a superheated ruin that’s no longer capable of supporting even bacterial life, but I continue to run seven cars, six of which have V8 engines, because I reckon that in the nick of time a Munich-based boffin will invent a giant space-based vacuum cleaner that will hoover all the unnecessary carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and make everything normal again.
I had the same attitude with Covid. Of course it wasn’t going to wipe us out, because somewhere in Germany there’d be a scientist in a room full of pipettes and Bunsen burners who’d invent a vaccine. And so it turned out to be.
Financial crash of ’08? Yup, I did a bit of running round in circles back then, thinking that all my savings would be consumed by the invisible and unfathomable fugazi that is Wall Street, but soon there was quantitative easing, and a deal with China, and by the spring of ’09 my snout was back in the fish roe.

This Ukraine business, however, is causing me to have a few chin-scratching moments of despair. I don’t pretend to be an expert in geopolitics any more than I pretend to be a farmer, but I really think the world has slipped into a pair of margarine trousers and is now hurtling down a well-watered slide into the pit of hunger, misery and death.
Let me run you through my thinking. The conflict and the sanctions and all of the other flotsam and jetsam that hurtle round a war zone have caused gas prices to skyrocket. You know this, of course, because it now costs a million pounds to heat your house and £20,000 to cook a lamb chop. I know it, too, because chemical fertiliser has gone from about £250 a tonne last year to about £1,000 a tonne now.

Naturally, because you don’t need fertiliser, you don’t care. But you should care because soon you’re going to go to the supermarket and all you’ll be able to buy is an out-of-date copy of Auto Express magazine and maybe 20 Benson & Hedges. And then, on the way home, you’ll be murdered.
The problem is that next year many farmers will decide that, because of the costs involved, they’ll use less fertiliser. Some will doubtless try to use none at all. Others will try to use cardboard or lawn clippings or faeces instead. Either way they will produce less food. Some farmers — I know of three in my area alone — have already decided to fallow their fields next year and grow nothing at all.

And this is not just happening in the UK. It’s a global phenomenon and it could well result in there being maybe 20 per cent less food in the shops than is necessary. That’s bad. And then it gets worse because, between them, Russia and Ukraine grow more than a quarter of global wheat exports . They are also responsible for about half the sunflower seeds we use, which is why, already, sunflower oil is being rationed in Britain.
So, thanks to the war, we lose a lot of the grain we need, and then, due to the cost of fertiliser, we lose 20 per cent of what’s left. Prices are already going up, not by 7 per cent or 10 per cent but by a massive 37 per cent. And the World Bank says it won’t stop there. They call it a “human catastrophe”.

Politicians say they are “monitoring the situation”, which means they aren’t doing anything at all, but one day they will have to because while people can live without heat or clothing or even sex, they cannot live without food. Hunger makes people eat their neighbours.
Or move. And surely that’s what must happen next. It’s said that nearly a third of the wheat Ukraine grows goes to Africa, and it won’t be getting any this summer. Nor will Africa be able to afford mine. Not at £300 a tonne. Anyway, what I grow is going to be needed here.

So what do you do if you are in Africa, or the Middle East for that matter, and there is literally no grain? Sit around waiting for Midge Ure to fire up his Nokia and call Bob Geldof? No, you’re going to up sticks and move to the only haven that’s remotely accessible: Europe. We’ve seen a lot of migration in recent years but I suspect that soon we’ll realise that what we’ve had so far was only a trickle.
So now the streets of Europe are filled with hungry and desperate immigrants claiming 40 quid a week from the government and finding that it isn’t even enough for a loaf of bread. Add them to the poor indigenous folk fed up with choosing between heating and eating and that’s when things risk turning really ugly.

It’s hard to see what on earth can be done to stop it happening. The British government could take a lead and force farmers to farm their land, with grants to pay for the fertiliser and nationwide clapping every night at eight. But that isn’t going to happen for a couple of reasons. First, the British government is run by Carrie Johnson, who thinks the countryside should be for badgers and not for growing food.
And second, the rest of the government (and the fourth estate, if I’m honest) is currently consumed by whether a slice of cake can turn a work gathering into a party and simply isn’t paying attention.

I get this, of course. They’re like me, assuming that a German with a Bunsen burner will come to the rescue, but this time I can’t see that happening. The war has chopped off a quarter of the world’s grain exports and caused gas prices to skyrocket, which means farmers in the West can no longer afford to feed their crops properly. Less food and massively higher prices are the inevitable consequence, and the result of that is hunger and many arterial blood splatters across the fridge-freezers in your local Iceland.
Prince Charles will tell you that the Arab Spring uprising was caused by global warming. Indirectly he may be right, but the direct cause was a sudden jump in food prices. And the world is still feeling the effects ten years later.

This time, though, it’ll be worse. And then we’ll get the right-wing, anti-immigration parties leaping onto their soap boxes and blaming the EU, which will cause Europe to fragment and then the world’s last bastion of liberalism and common sense and decency will be broken.

Which is exactly what Putin wants. Sure, the war in Ukraine may result in him gaining only a tiny bit of land in the east of the country, but beyond that it could well destabilise Europe for years. Unless, of course, none of that happens and the continent is saved, hilariously, by a German. In which case we could all go back to worrying about whales and global warming.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 43.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.8%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.6%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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