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Nervous Brits stockpile food with 'Brexit box' during uncertainty
https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/14/nerv...ncertainty

INTRO: An increasing number of British people are stockpiling food ahead of Brexit in fear that the UK will crash out of the European Union with no-deal, leading to shortages of food and medicine. Manufacturer Emergency Food Storage said around 600 people have purchased a €331 "Brexit box" since it launched the product in December. The box includes 60 freeze-dried meals, 48 portions of meat, a water filter and firestarter. The company said the box has a 25-year lifespan. "I think people are concerned with the Brexit outcome, it's a bit of a chaotic situation", James Blake, managing director of the firm, told Euronews....

MORE: https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/14/nerv...ncertainty

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NFU: Britain can’t feed itself without the help of non-UK labour
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-sto...-1-5851580

INTRO: The head of a national farming union has warned Britain will not be able to feed itself without the help of seasonal non-UK labour after Brexit. NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick said Scotland and the UK are “getting thrown into a meltdown situation as far as labour is concerned”, regardless of a deal or no-deal scenario.

In a blog post on the union’s website, he lamented a shortage in workers last year despite the UK government implementing the pilot Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme. The scheme will allow temporary visas for up to 2,500 non-EU nationals during the transition period due to end in 2020.

McCornick said: “Unquestionably, the obvious sectors that will feel it first will be fruit, veg and horticulture, requiring approximately 10,000 people per year in Scotland alone. It is much bigger than that, though. The largest manufacturing sector in the UK is food processing and a big part of their labour is non-UK - more than 50% in the red meat sector; more than 90% of vets in approved meat establishments; upwards of 30% of the permanent staff in the dairy sector, and 40% of staff in egg production (both temporary and permanent). Huge numbers of lorries on our roads are driven by non-UK drivers (60,000 approx) and the retail sector requires large numbers of non-UK staff within their supply chains, both shop front and behind doors. Already the uncertainty around Brexit is causing a shortfall, leaving fruit and veg unharvested in Scotland last year.”

He added: “When we established a priority list immediately after the Brexit vote, labour requirements sat alongside the need for trade, policy and support. We cannot feed our nation without this labour.”

MORE: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-sto...-1-5851580

It's a shame some of the local farmers that use to run PYO (Pick Your Own) sites in the local area have retired over the past 10 years. PYO was a pretty big thing, it perhaps was akin to victory gardens (wikipedia.org) (allotment allocations) handed out Post-Second World War to aid people in dealing with the continued ration system that operated until 1954.

The problem was that as supermarkets started to dominate, and larger external stores moved to the outskirts of towns, the lazy approach where everything can be got from one place caused demand for such things as PYO to be reduced.

As a youngster I use to find myself during the early 1980's dragged out into a field with my mother and sibling to pick fruit and vegetables from the field, so we could fill a punnet and pay for the privilege of picking our own, before returning home with the food. In some respects it got us all out of the house in the fresh air, picking fresh fruit and vegetables that we didn't have to tend ourselves. (I guess it's a fond memory of the past, although I'm sure peoples recollections are different if they happen to get caught short in the middle of the field and realise they can just cop a squat behind the nearest hedge because someones picking berries from it)

In any even the re-emergence of both Allotment allocation and PYO would definitely fix some of the problems that are current being perceived and used as fear monger.

(It's kind of bad really, after the second world war the whole "Keep Calm and Carry on" was in full effect, but this day an age everyones on the verge of mass hysteria)

(Jan 14, 2019 10:38 PM)stryder Wrote: [ -> ]As a youngster I use to find myself during the early 1980's dragged out into a field with my mother and sibling to pick fruit and vegetables from the field, so we could fill a punnet and pay for the privilege of picking our own, before returning home with the food. In some respects it got us all out of the house in the fresh air, picking fresh fruit and vegetables that we didn't have to tend ourselves. (I guess it's a fond memory of the past, although I'm sure peoples recollections are different if they happen to get caught short in the middle of the field and realise they can just cop a squat behind the nearest hedge because someones picking berries from it).

For some reason "Strawberry Fields" inapplicably pops to mind, though the reasons are legion why it could have nothing to do with this. Probably due to years ago, during a radio interview in the States prior to a concert, the band Bush replied to a girl who called in that "Strawberry Field" was an actual place, rather than a fictitious one she had thought John Lennon made up. One of the members talked about going there to literally pick strawberries, without mention of a mansion, various stages it being an "orphanage", etc. Whereas I've seen nary a mention of a literal field of strawberries ever having been there as Bush referenced (the host, too, for that matter).

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