Clitheroe

Just Grow Bowland Accrington Todmorden Regenerate Future

2. Clitheroe

Environment

Water About 22 Niles worth of water in Africa are used to grow the food to send Europe, as fruit and vegetables. Its called 'Virtual water' a term created by Prof Tony Allan, Kings College, who helped me immensely developing a Masters in Regenerative Farming.

Land & Air

70% of the land in our food footprint is abroad according to Royal Society Report ."The UK is currently importing over 50% of its food and feed, whereas 70% and 64% of the associated cropland and GHGE impacts, respectively, are located abroad. These results imply that the UK is increasingly reliant on external resources and that the environmental impact of its food supply is increasingly displaced overseas".

We rely on others' land and labour to deliver most of our food.

This diagram is from 2008. Since then there will have been an increase in the imports of ultra-processed foods which - almost by definition - are all imported. The purpose of ultra-processing is to make it as cheap to transport as possible.

Where our food crops come from. This is usually on the other side of the world from where they were first cultivated.

We provide only 1/3 of land needed to grow our food crops.

We use other people's lands twice as much as our own.

2/3 of the GHGs generated to produce our food occurs abroad.

Tariffs

Our government is encouraging the importation of ultra-processed foods.

Malaysia has negotiated with the UK to eliminate tariffs on Malaysian palm oil

First 1/4 mill tons of raw sugar cane exempted from tariffs worth around £100m

Trade Deals

Various trade deals - particularly the Australian (Conservative) and American (Labour) - are encouraging the import of good quality cheap beef threatening local production,

Markets

In the film outside Tesco, I say that we are dominated now 'by the markets'. And market prices go down when there is abundance and up when scarcity. That is the iron law of markets but ignored by all those who call to produce more more more food to feed starving millions. They cannot afford to buy even cheap food.

Nowhere is this problem of 'overproduction' more so than in US at the moment. We ask at the end of the film to consider future world food supplies, particularly in relation to Trump's change on tariffs. The USA's foreign policy since the last war has been based on getting rid of that surplus, but Trump knows better.

'Record yields are driving the price of corn down' 'Farmers across the country are looking at record yields during their fall harvest. They may have nowhere to sell them. As a result of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, crop farmers have lost a significant export market, driving down the price of top U.S. crops like soybeans and corn' Politico

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