Scarcities

Anyway I buy my asparagus from a farm three miles away.
Always conscious of “air miles” I try not to buy from sbroad if there is an alternative.
And no, they do not employ immigrant pickets, just the family and local casual labour.

Ho:w lucky are you Maw I would love that. I think there must have been a glut in Spain as we have been getting it almost half price this year. The French variety has just started to come into the shops.

This thread seems to be on a par with the non news items put on the so called news programmes and apparently there is nothing like a good scare story to attract the hand wringers!

Our family priority is to grow what is possible and then to buy local/organic. We cook from scratch from necessity but the by product of that is we know exactly what is in everything we eat. Easier to stay well than get well/better and eating well is the key. There is usually an alternative to what one has grown accustomed to having and this broadens the mind and the palate. I am a baby boomer brought up by the well respected 'make do and mend/dig for victory' brigade and was well taught.

Lots of factors come into play with growing your own - needing some land, weather conditions, ability to tend the patch etc. For some people it is just not a feasible thing.

It may well be scaremongering but maybe not -the farmers don’t seem to think so - and neither do the hauliers.

I am sorry Alexa I think you are talking rubbish. Most crops; grains, root crops, industrial crops like rape and maize are cropped by big machines which are owned by the big agricultural contracting companies who use this equipment intensively and extensively. Vegetable crops like lettuces, brassica and leeks can be planted by machine and again contractors often do this work as well using specialised equipment , which, because it is used intensively and extensively is economically a sound investment. There are already schemes in place to provide farmers with seasonal workers and as these are UK schemes, not EU they are unlikely to be affected by Brexit, so workers will still be becoming over

Then you say I don't want to eat US chlorinated chicken or hormone and antobiotic-laden beef and am increasing my cooking skills for vegetarian foods. What has livestock farming got to do with farmers cropping vegetables and soft fruit? Then you say you are cooking more vegetarian food after talking about shortages of fruit and veg .

The UK is the second largest producer of poultry products in Europe only about a 25 % of demand is met by imports. No one is going to force you to buy chlorine washed chicken. You are only likely to find it in cheap chicken take aways and cheap ready meals. If you buy your chicken fresh from a reputable supplier, supermarket, farm shop or butcher, there will not be a problem.

Lastly remember that all farmers are pessimists. They all expect everything to fail. They are hard-wired to see problems where none exist. Remember the poem?

The Farmer will never be happy again;
He carries his heart in his boots;
For either the rain is destroying his grain
Or the drought is destroying his roots

Oh, by the way, the same applies to beef as well as chicken.

I think (especially the young people) forgetwe existed before & we will again. Visas were applied for back in the day!

Maybe we should have more farms where you could pick your own fruit and vegetables, instead of relying on migrant labour?

I remember my brother potato and pea picking. We can do it again without EU regulations.

I can remember going fruit picking with my schoolfriends and we all enjoyed being able to contribute to the family coffers and the occasional additional spending power. It is amazing what can be done when necessary and it can even be enjoyable when there is a good crowd involved.

MOnica, I'd like to be proven wrong.

What I meant about not intending to buy American chlorinated chicken, and hormone/antibiotic beef is that making trade with Europe difficult with regard to both migrant labourers and food we will be liable to imports from the US.

US food animal welfare is bad. The info about their feeding lots is hard to read about. Overcrowding of food animals causes them to become diseased. Producers therefore give them prophylactic antibiotics.

Cheap US chickens are chlorinated to disinfect them after they are harvested.

Trade with US will increase and migrant worker supply will decrease as a result of our quitting free European trade and frontiers.

Alexa, Read the following link about the seasonal workers scheme www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43127524. It should allay your fears.

Just because we are out of the EU does not mean that imports between EU countries and us will be impossible. Just that EU and US imports will come into this country under the same regime. Personally, I suspect that EU imports will still get preference. Certainly when it comes to food.

We are, anyway, already importing chicken from Thailand, where chicken farming certainly, doesn't meet UK welfare standards. Most of it goes into the catering trade, which is why I never eat chicken when eating out. This is probably what will happen with US imports.

Pork comes from EU countries and in places like Denmark and Netherlands, their welfare standards are also below ours. The simplest thing to do is only eat British meat, which is what I do.

That's good, MOnica. It's also interesting that Mr Gove foresees that other EU countries will be wanting to keep their good workers . It is after all not right that the uk deprive other , poorer, countries of their hardest and most skilled when these workers are badly needed in their own countries.

As so often the question arises of how to instil sufficient work ethic into home grown workers.

PS MOnica, I am sure you are right about restaurant chicken. You are also right about your choice. Me, I seldom eat meat although I provide Co op chicken for guests, and my dog still eats Chum twice a day.

When I did eat pig products I was careful to choose British born and fattened pigs.

I have had a Good Idea

Instead of young people going off on gap years to exciting places like Australia, New Zealand, South America etc, picking and packing fruit and vegetables over there, perhaps we should encourage them to backpack around the UK, picking and packing homegrown fruit and vegetables after Brexit.

Sorted!

Good idea, Jalima1108. The UK might not be exotic enough for them, though? ?
I remember my brother going pea-picking at weekends, for pocket money, picked up by a lorry. This was back in the 1960’s. Not sure if youngsters would want to do it today, though

and I don't think they would do it for pocket money either - they are far better paid on Australia!

in not on!

Bloody hell. Dig for victory? Welcome to planet Brexit, where the citizens have their heads in the sand.

I don't see what is/was wrong with dig for victory? Nobody should be hungry or penniless if they can use their strength and muscles and work to eat/for a living surely.

I agree that growing fruit and vegetables is a good thing to do but the very best thing you could possibly do is to campaign against the madness of brexit. Article 50 can be revoked. When we know the "deal" we should have the choice of rejecting it and staying in the EU.

www.facebook.com/campaigntoremain/

This is a balanced and less scare mongering article

albertgoodman.co.uk/brexits-impact-on-uk-farming/

I'm all for Brexit.

Synonymous:
"I don't see what is/was wrong with dig for victory? confused Nobody should be hungry or penniless if they can use their strength and muscles and work to eat/for a living surely. hmm".
I agree - and people were slim and healthy, no obesity crisis.

My student children are not prepared to pick cauliflowers, in Boston, in November just so that some people can have their Brexit triumph. We are not talking idling the afternoon away, picking a few apples a la Darling Buds of May, we are talking about back breaking work in muddy fields on wet November afternoons. I thought I had travelled back in time to the 1950s when I read this thread, Dig for Victory? Make do and Mend? there was even a spectacularly edifying remark from someone about making those 'on the dole' pick fruit and veg. Actually, I have got a better idea, all of you who voted for bloody Brexit shall be given a sharp knife and a hi-vis tabard, collected from a street corner at 5am and taken to the fields to harvest our crops. What about that for taking back control eh?

In theory nothing is wrong except old frail people would be reliant on others and people in flats or with no gardens would be at an immediate disadvantage.