• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

    Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

    schools bill

    Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home News Health

      Health, wealth and food security in the UK

      ming indifference to the carbon impact all along the food chain and to the low pay of those, especially minorities, who harvest and process our food, and put it on our shelves.

      Salli MartlewbySalli Martlew
      11-05-2020 21:58
      in Health, Politics
      Photo by Nathan Van de Graaf on Unsplash

      Photo by Nathan Van de Graaf on Unsplash

      94
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      We all need it. No-one can live without it. Sufficiency of it brings peace and productivity. Deficiency leads to weakness, illness and lower productivity. The kinks and distortions in supply and demand for food are not new. But then came Covid-19, described as the ‘great magnifier’. All that was there before, good or bad, is now magnified.

      Wealth inequality skews demand, and market dominance by certain sellers pushes some producers to the edge. There is seeming indifference to the carbon impact all along the food chain and to the low pay of those, especially minorities, who harvest and process our food, and put it on our shelves. In March 2020, Robert Jenrick MP, Secretary of State for Communities, said there were 1.5 million in need of food help in the UK. The Food Foundation put the figure at nearer to 3 million.

      We need to use our new awareness as consumers, producers, sellers, regulators and governors to reimagine our roles and remake the food system so it does more for health, equality and our planet.

      Our experience during the last world war – which exposed significant malnutrition across the nation – could teach us a lot.  Good and plentiful food was needed for both those on the front line and those back home working to support them. This led to the 1940 food plan and rationing, to ensure everyone had access to nutrition and health through good food and a balanced diet. That was a crisis of another order of magnitude, but now we confront new challenges brought on by Covid-19, climate change, and Brexit.

      The world is beset by dramatic changes in weather patterns and therefore in food production. Our weather in the UK is more unstable and less reliable and we have just had one of the driest springs after the wettest winter in memory. This has had a major effect on our food production. The wet autumn and winter prevented the potato harvest being completed, leading to acres of potatoes eventually being ploughed in rather than harvested. This meant months of delay in drilling the following cereal crops and it will be several years before that soil can be used to grow potatoes again. A shortage of British-grown potatoes will mean importing even more than we do now.

      The same applies to the wheat and barley fields – now dotted with soil-brown patches where they were previously water-logged – signalling a fall in harvest yields this year. We face shortages in domestically produced crops at a time when we need every grain.

      According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the UK produces 53 per cent of its food and imports 28 per cent from EU countries. Whatever happens at the end of the transition period, our food supply chains will be affected. The Common Agricultural Policy, for all its flaws, aimed to encourage efficient food production in each of the member countries and an overall sufficiency for all.

      Production and harvesting require labour. According to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board:

      “A shortage of appropriate labour could mean that higher wages and resulting increased cost of production would have a negative impact on the UK’s productivity and competitiveness. If this happened at the same time the UK opened up to free trade and new low-cost competition from emerging markets, some UK-based businesses may find it even harder to compete.”


      Embed from Getty Images

      However the labour barriers with the EU are implemented – by numbers, by skills needed, or by pay restrictions that might affect groups such as agricultural workers or vets – there will be a direct and immediate impact on food production here. Covid-19 has reminded us how essential workers are to food production. 

      We must rethink our food system now. Let us grow what we can eat and eat more locally. Let us look after those who help to put food on our tables, wherever they were born. Let us think long term about the climate and our environment, working with them rather than trying to control them. We face multiple crises – some of our own making, and some not. In the next months and years we have a choice to make: we can continue to use our technology, our knowledge, our skills and our land in the same way as before, or we can remake a healthier world

      UK Covid-19: Did the experts get it wrong?


      Building a new Yorkshire -are citizen’s assemblies a way forward


      The Yorkshire economy after Covid-19 – What should it look like?


      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      Construction workers are risking their lives for buildings we may no longer need

      Next Post

      Lockdown viewing: Our Friends in the North

      Salli Martlew

      Salli Martlew

      Salli is now retired after careers in both agriculture and education in the UK and overseas. More recently campaigning with Save the Children has also provided the inspiration for Salli to speak up for those who do not have a voice, particularly women and children.

      Related Posts

      Conservative Party Meeting
      Politics

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      bySue Wilson MBE
      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
      Politics

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      byDr Stella Perrott
      26 June 2022
      Emmanuel Macron
      Politics

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      byAnn Moody
      25 June 2022
      March for women
      Politics

      Women of Wakefield: people power only works if the people use that power

      byProfessor Juliet Lodge
      24 June 2022
      your vote matters wakefield by-election
      Politics

      Spotlight on some of the smaller parties in the Wakefield by-election

      byWill Barber Taylor
      22 June 2022
      Next Post
      Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums / No restrictions

      Lockdown viewing: Our Friends in the North

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      27 June 2022
      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      26 June 2022

      MOST READ

      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In