Rice isn't a very profitable crop unless you either have super cheap labour (not in the UK) or massive fields and lots of automation.
The UK has small fields and complex land ownership arrangements which mean the 100,000 acre farms of the USA won't happen there.
Overall, I think that unless the UK wants to subsidize rice production or use big Japan-like rice import tariffs, the rice industry is dead-in-the-water.
Maybe there's a little market for restaurants and high value products which want to advertise 'under 100 food miles' or similar. But such things tend to be very economically inefficient, so the government would be wise to discourage such production.
The UK is trying to reestablish tidal marshes to control storm surges which will only get worse with climate change.
I’m sure there are some scenarios where rice fields could be added as additional depth to this buffer, via farm subsidies. It doesn’t matter if it’s profitable, if it’s nearly profitable and it reduces damage from ten, twenty, or even fifty year storms. You can divert money from remediation into prevention.
Farming sector as a whole is heavily subsidised in most of Europe, but that doesn't mean everything you do as a farmer (and every crop) is subsidised.
Eg potatoes grown for eating are almost completely unregulated and unsubsidised in the EU. Similar with grapes grown for eating. In comparison with potatoes grown for starch and wine grown for grapes. It's crazy.
To be fair, without subsidies only fools would grow wine for grapes! (Sorry, just my way of pointing out a minor typo. If you edit without replying to me I'll delete this.)
In general food production enjoys heavy government support...
... but then again, many industries do too. Libertarian tech bros think they are "self made" even in fact the government supported them with absolutely massive support, from government tech purchasing to supporting R&D and higher education to tax breaks to deregulation and more.
Your average industry can't enjoy net subsidies: the money has to come from somewhere, so you have to tax at least as much as you subsidise. (Modulo shifting taxation around over time via debt.)
Though I'm not sure what you are trying to say with your comment? Just because someone is in favour of reducing subsidies, doesn't necessary mean they want to abolish the government?
Just like Bob being in favour of a weightloss diet for a morbidly obese Alice, friend doesn't mean Bob wants their normal sized friend Charlie to starve himself to death (nor does Bob want Alice to continue losing weight once she reached a healthy weight).
The fact that you wrote this in reply to me makes me think you missed the point of my comment, which didn't actually have anything to do with subsidies - I was just pointing out they "growing wine to make grapes" is the wrong way round ;)
> But such things tend to be very economically inefficient, so the government would be wise to discourage such production.
Absurd comment. Governments should subsidise local food production to whatever extent necessary, especially when it's economically inefficient, because stable staple food supplies should not be external dependencies.
> And you can still have efficient food production in the UK, it's just that small artisanal "under 100 food-miles" farming is inefficient.
Economically inefficient, but diversity of local supply in a key factor in food security, and as a hopeless food insecure country, the UK should be diversifying as much as possible, especially to crops that will thrive in the coming climate.
Have you been paying attention to the farming sector in the last 5yr?
There's plenty of problems reminiscent of the 30s after the whole chain has been kicked around due to labour from Brexit, supply due to Brexit, access to markets from Brexit and then the joy of dealing with the cv19 lockdowns.
The sector is still facing real financial problems and none of the last few governments have seen farmers as anything other than land owning cash cows.
No they should really really be discussing things like this.
This is like trying to claim bioethanol is somehow carbon negative.
It's broken from a farming standpoint (and we're a nation starting to face issues with production. Notice how I say starting not we're starving there's several world's of different yet)
It's broken from an economic standpoint because you're going to try and take on the whole of Asia who could crush you in a single shipment.
It's broken from a mindset perspective. British wine may be one that grabs interest over here like British vodka. But people will not pay 10x or more for British rice. It will be seen as a stupid concept or idea.
It's broken because again... Who in Britain is clamouring for more rice options? This is a product type which is already over saturated at the normal supermarket, let alone the choices when you're willing to shop online.
If there's no discouragement to projects like this idiots will run the land into ruin, lose a lot of money. Drive away needed capital from farms looking to turn around their fortunes and damage the sector.
I'm not saying British farms are about to collapse and we're all about to starve here, but the sector is struggling.
> But people will not pay 10x or more for British rice.
Unless and until it's the only carbohydrate source available due to some global war or disaster. All countries should be aiming for domestic food security and diversity.
The UK Energy Security Plan does at least try to cover essential energy needs (food production, hospitals, defence, civil powers and authorities, etc) indefinitely from domestic supply.
The Defence Industrial Strategy does the same for essential manufacturing capabilities.
Raw material supply security is the purview of many government bodies, including MOD, BGS, and more.
> But at which point this becomes ridiculous?
Securing the food supply to your population, the absolute most basic of human needs along with the water and shelter, is the furthest thing from ridiculous.
I am a former knowledgeable CBRN person and sat on advisory panels for my own countries energy, food, and medical security policies, so while certainly not a food security expert, I probably have more exposure than most to the food security challenges of island nations in the East Atlantic.
Great Britain, which excludes NI, has a roughly 60% calorie self-sufficiency ratio and quite literally cannot feed itself without imports.
Ireland and Northern Ireland can many times over, in principle even if spare parts and fuel were blockaded, although it would be an uninspiring diet.
I am certainly open to further education as this area interests me and my country is woefully unprepared for any interruption to global supply chains, especially in relation to fuel and medical supplies, so I continue to make policy submissions in this area.
That's comparing production means today with an inflated population due to uncontrolled migration.
(Main confronting factor to pop growth in last few years so can't be avoided as topic).
Comparing blockade numbers to peace time production is a false equivalency.
Am I saying there won't be unrest no, but you just started a scenario by blockading Britain. If you think we don't produce enough food, it's about the only thing we actual do produce here other than empty city promises and patents.
The country would eat itself before the means of food production hits the top 5 of our problems if honestly bet.
The country has capacity to engage in intensive farming of several means which we currently do not because of animal rights concerns, lack of manpower etc.
In a blockade scenario animal rights go out the window to a starving populace. Food waste is addressed in several means and we start engaging in battery farming and crop yields yes move to calorific content vs serving the Ritz their flav d'jour.
And let's not pretend NI is included under any sensible scenario other than the British military blockading and subsuming control of RoI. There's no scenario where a blockade of Britain as an island would leave us "struggling to feed NI with RoI being supported by the European block" as another absolutist.
> The country has capacity to engage in intensive farming of several means which we currently do not because of animal rights concerns, lack of manpower etc. In a blockade scenario animal rights go out the window to a starving populace. Food waste is addressed in several means and we start engaging in battery farming and crop yields yes move to calorific content vs serving the Ritz their flav d'jour.
Not to be rude, but your Government, MOD, and think-tanks disagree with you. The latent capacity of UK agriculture is estimated to be able to feed approximately 80-90% of the population, which for context is similar to the amount of food available (including external aid) in South Sudan now.
> And let's not pretend NI is included under any sensible scenario other than the British military blockading and subsuming control of RoI. There's no scenario where a blockade of Britain as an island would leave us "struggling to feed NI with RoI being supported by the European block" as another absolutist.
The UK does not have the ability to militarily conquer Ireland, let alone survive the consequences, so this is, well, delusional.
I honestly do not think you are well informed enough to form a valid opinion on this topic, which explains your reactive and emotion-driven comments
80%+ at peace time. I.e. not with mandated farming practices and not with a national focus as part of priority to fix this.
Unlike the Sudan we don't produce the remaining 15%+/-5 because we're a wealthy nation and can engage and have become semi-reliant a little on trade. And our tastes have changed as a result of the availability of luxury goods.
This is wildly different to not having capacity or infrastructure which can be tweaked. (I'm not saying magically tonnes of milk and honey appear from nowhere) And this is ignoring the scary word of rationing.
Sudan either can't, won't or is constrained from producing the missing part of the food required to feed their people. But that's more linked to US foreign policy than this hypothetical discussion otherwise.
Edit in not even touching RoI vs UK army. I'm not pretending any show down would be bloodless, but the UK has a few plain numerical overwhelming superiorities. Again stating simple facts.
No, in any time, as is the definition of latent capacity.
> Edit in not even touching RoI vs UK army. I'm not pretending any show down would be bloodless, but the UK has a few plain numerical overwhelming superiorities. Again stating simple facts.
The Cold War British Armed Forces were unable to hold the farmland of Northern Ireland against 3,000 members of PIRA, let alone the current forces against the island now. Those are the facts in the history books.
You are delusional, living in a worldview that never matched reality and diverges more each day.
It's wild that you got downvoted for this reasonable take.
Right next door, Ireland had a little problem with potatoes and a massive famine resulted from it. Had the island had a more diverse mix of crops, things probably would've been a little less severe.
There are currently pests and infections spreading around the world and destroying crops. Bananas are undergoing a repeat of their last global crop failure and isolated pockets of uninfected bananas are becoming more valuable. Natural rubber had a disease that wiped out most rubber trees. It's not impossible for wheat in Europe to be hit with a plague in the near future and absolutely wipe out crops and food sources for hundreds of millions. There's war in Eastern Europe that risks spreading, and if it does, embargoes are possible. Investing now in alternative local food sources is simply smart.
Profit now isn't everything. The problem that's gutting the west now is how countries shipped off every industry to other cheaper countries because it was "more profitable and nothing bad will happen." Now the youth are left with less than their parents had.
Plus the article addresses this being done as a climate change-proofing measure. With the UK getting hotter, rice grows better and better. Other crops may not.
> Right next door, Ireland had a little problem with potatoes
Common misconception: Ireland actually had a little problem with the British. Even during the most intense parts of the famine Ireland was still exporting food. The British absentee landowners simply did not care that their peasants were starving. The ruling party wanted to let the "free market" solve it, with some politicians considering it "divine providence" or a "lack of moral character". This was made even worse by refusing aid to small landowners, which killed sustenance farming.
People often forget that it was a European famine, rather than an Irish one. The Irish potato yield was reduced by 30%, while the potato yield in Denmark was reduced by 50%, The Netherlands by 71%, and Belgium by 87%! Tens of thousands died in those countries, but it is only Ireland where the population was reduced from 8 million to 4 million.
Monoculture (as decided upon by the absentee British landlords) was indeed the direct cause, but it only got as bad as it did because the British elite chose to let them die. Had they imported alternative crops to feed their peasants, or even just stopped potato export, it would've been far less severe.
Yes, the fact Britain was brutal to the Irish is no secret.
But had Ireland not had a monoculture that all rotted away, things would've been less severe. And what you've said only further proves the point I was making: you should grow other crops so that you're not dependent on imports. Britain wouldn't let the Irish import food. It's not impossible for a situation to arise where a country doesn't let Britain import food. Growing alternative grains is the British looking at their own brutal history and learning from it.
> But had Ireland not had a monoculture that all rotted away, things would've been less severe.
Ireland didn't have a monoculture. It exported other crops and meat throughout the famine and required calories never exceeded food production on the island.
The only monoculture was on tenant farmer's personal gardens, which were monocultures by necessity.
What are you talking about? The Singapore Food Agency was created primarily to increase domestic food production even though it is extremely economically inefficient singularly to try to improve food security, which is completely dependent on imports and the precarious freedom of navigation in the straits.
Sure, they might want to increase it a bit, but I don't think anyone sane is going for autarky in Singapore, ie 'stable staple food supplies should not be external dependencies.' Not even the Singapore Food Agency.
I think you made a flippant comment not realising how seriously a threat that food insecurity poses to Singaporean independence and now feel you can't back down, but you're just wrong on this one.
30X30 aims to supply 30% of nutritional needs by 2030 using only 1% of the land precisely to make progress towards 100% calorie self-sufficiency.
It also might depend on what they mean by yield. Rice has a high yield in terms of resulting food content/calories but rice is generally pretty cheap per kilogram. Other higher profit crops may result in a higher yield in terms of revenue but lower yield in terms of calories/nutrition.
Oh, the bigger fields still have very high yield per acre.
> It seems like smaller fully automated fields could also do?
In principle, yes, but your machines will probably be idle much of the time, if there's not enough land to keep them busy. So it's not worth it, unless the machines get really cheap.
The reason you see people planting rice seedlings in wet fields in movies and TV is that the rice being planted is already the second or third crop of the year. Someone somewhere sowed rice seed densely in a single plot, to use to replant several times as much acreage by transplanting.
They can also in some cases raise fish in the same terrace, and herbs or other crops on the walls between them.
Farmers of Forty Centuries is an out of copyright book from ~1903 that details the findings of a research group from IIRC England who wanted to understand how the Chinese have been farming the same fields for four millennia without exhausting them. They were doing three crops a year back 120 years ago. A lot of it is down to accumulating silt over time by irrigating with silty water, and dredging the irrigation canals every so often to start new fields with the take.
My African violets were always amazing when I still kept fish. Any time they were looking ragged, a cup of fish tank water would not only restore them but force a bloom within a handful of weeks.
Venus fly traps work because insects have a larger range to forage and they bring protein to the plants in an environment where soil nitrogen is a challenge.
Between the rices paddies and the fish ponds you can co-locate in the rice paddies, is why India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have almost 1.7 billion people.
Ely (a few miles south of this project) used to be an island with a large eel fishing industry, from which it derives it's name. The Fens were drained in the 17th century with help from Dutch engineers, and I believe much of the area is now below sea level; the river Ouse is raised above the surrounding land with embankments. I've ran past some of the pumping stations on the Roman lodes myself: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/125065713
I wonder what the risk is of rising sea levels to this project?
Paddy fields aren't the only way to grow rice, you can do rows and flood soil alongside, you can do upland style dry fields rice planting.
I guess the point of the experiment was with climate and increasing flooded landscape (like the fens?) But the risk would be salt incursion as much as anything else.
If it's climate (temperature) alone, it didn't need paddy fields. I think a lot of Australian rice is irrigated but not full flooded fields, or a reduced flood compared to traditional approaches. More amenable to massive fields and a water storage system. Recently saw a cotton farm at St George and the (huge!) fields are groomed with a laser level to control for irrigation flow, I think they do the same for rice, when it makes sense.
It's just a climate issue to grow rice outdoor in England.
Rice is grown in Southern France and Northern Italy. So it is unsurprising that this may be moving North, as summers het warmer, and this summer was almost Mediterranean in England.
Rice crop requires climate, soil, water, fertilizers, good seeds and machinery. In India, the second crop for rice is grown through the winter which is not much warmer than British summer. Also England has black soils with less sand, which are good for rice. Looks like all conditions are met.
Recent advances in farm machinery reduced dependency on labour significantly, even in Asian villages. I was shocked to see drones doing fertilizer and pesticide spraying in the remote villages that do not even have proper roads and drinking water.
India. The drones (and other farm machinery) are operated on rental, not owned by farmers. There is hardly any farm worker available in villages, due to migration to towns and cities.
Why is this a surprise? I think people have forgotten that the First Nations people near Lake Superior had rice as their staple crop. Growing wild in the shallows of lakes and ponds. Reseeded by being intentionally sloppy with the harvest.
If it can grow in Minnesota it sure as fuck can grow in the UK.
The wild rice grown near the Great Lakes (Zizania palustris) is an entirely different species than the rice typically eaten elsewhere (Oryza sativa). There is no particular reason to presume that both can be grown in the same environment.
It’s been a bit since I was offered wild rice in a dish but is out there in the culinary repertoire. Not going to be used for making sushi or curry of course, but it has a place, and could have more.
50% more protein, but unfortunately still 0% vitamin A.
> We often think of rice as a tropical plant, but it does grow in colder climates.
..? Is Japan and Korea tropical for the British?
The BBC seems to love to ram in a climate change narrative in every possible hole it can find. While it's a serious problem, trying to fit it into every story just starts to make me skeptical of every climate change related things they report
It probably has a lot less to do with air temperature and more to do with amount of precipitation and humidity. You also don't have bamboo growing in Europe or the Mediterranean. It's not because it's not hot enough in Italy or Egypt
Just look at some other BBC article and they explain there is a impending water shortage in Britain.
Humans are lazy and bad at preventing long-term problems. We need to be reminded frequently, otherwise we get complacent and take naps instead of saving our species.
This is why there is a global crisis of confidence in science. B/c science is constantly portrayed as a tool to push agendas and policies (that are maybe even necessary) and not an exploration of facts. It's done so blatantly and transparently that anyone with a skeptical mind is just turned off by the whole thing
This isn't an indictment of science or scientists, but of science reporting. If the story is climate-change related then it's reported. If it's not, then they find some climate change related angle. If they can't then the story is usually dropped.
Science journalism has a lot of issues but I think those problems are across journalism and not especially unique to science. Over referencing familiar narratives, click bait headlines, piss poor editing...you'll find this in all types of news out there.
Should science journalist hold themselves to a better, special standard? True. Especially with the age old war that's waged on it by those who hold power through selling incredibly unscientific world views. But I think the overt actions these forces are more to blame than poor science journalism. People don't like inconvenient facts, people will forever be victims to a voice making a problem go away by denying the problem even exists.
I do not think scientists are entirely blame free, and institutions certainly share part of the blame. University PR departments frequently spin stuff to get attention from journalists (most commonly everything is a huge breakthrough, preferably related to an issue already in the news).
My guess is that the underlying issue is funding.
I also think there are often communication failures from many scientists - for example failing to distinguish between personal opinion, consensus opinion, and well proven things.
On top of that, of course, individual scientists are still fallible and biased like any human being, especially about things they feel strongly about.
A good journalist would speak to multiple people in the field with different opinions, ask them questions like how well proven a theory actually is, etc. Pity they are not more common!
It's totally possible climate change has caused it a lot more viable to growing rice in the UK. I don't want to say they're lieing. I'm not some agricultural specialist to argue with them. But the way it's reported is so lazy and has such big holes in basic logic that it makes anyone reading it just highly skeptical.
The privatised water companies chose to stop building additional reservoir capacity. From what I've read, the UK pipes currently leak about the same percentage of the water going through them, as the percentage by which the population went up since privatisation.
It's money and incentives, not a property of the geography.
> It probably has a lot less to do with air temperature and more to do with amount of precipitation and humidity. You also don't have bamboo growing in Europe or the Mediterranean.
No idea what the point here is? Was it to demonstrate that the BBC‘s grasp of botany is poor?
Bamboo grows just fine in Europe. In the UK, some even argue it should be considered an invasive species.
> Was it to demonstrate that the BBC‘s grasp of botany is poor?
Sure, that's one way to put it. If you don't know the topic you're reporting on, then maybe don't report on it? I'm not a botanist, and I can smell the BS already.
To their credit, they do link a paper which I assume explains things better (though a cursory look seems to show it's not really about rice)
And furthermore.. if you're reporting on some science, and you're not an expert.. it helps to ask people not associate with the research for an outside assessment. Science reporting at the BBC is a disaster. Nothing is fact checked. They just ask the researchers and eat up whatever is said and add a layer of sensationalism on top. It's the same across all their writing and podcast/radio programs.
I think b/c politicians are expected to lie.
Whereas scientists are viewed as naiive cute furry animals that wouldn't spin the truth.
You never hear them take a scientist to task or ask probing questions.
It's really a different type of interview - where the holy gurus of academia are blessing the reporter with knowledge
> Sure, that's one way to put it. If you don't know the topic you're reporting on,...
Am I missing some irony or subtle sarcasm here? You're attacking the BBC for being inaccurate - with an argument containing a claim which is not just inaccurate but completely false - about the habitats which support growing bamboo.
> and I can smell the BS already
Where is this BS? You haven't identified a single sentence containing a scientific inaccuracy as far as I can see.
"Smell" is a weasel word - a way of avoiding the effort of actually presenting an argument or evidence - or even using the opportunity for some introspection about your own emotional reaction to an article because it mentions climate change.
I've read the article - it uses the usual light entertainment style favored by the BBC - which is the reason I don't bother with the BBC at all. But unless you're actually offended by being reminded of the existence of AGW, I can't see anything at all offensive, inaccurate or false in it.
Rice isn't a very profitable crop unless you either have super cheap labour (not in the UK) or massive fields and lots of automation.
The UK has small fields and complex land ownership arrangements which mean the 100,000 acre farms of the USA won't happen there.
Overall, I think that unless the UK wants to subsidize rice production or use big Japan-like rice import tariffs, the rice industry is dead-in-the-water.
Maybe there's a little market for restaurants and high value products which want to advertise 'under 100 food miles' or similar. But such things tend to be very economically inefficient, so the government would be wise to discourage such production.
The UK is trying to reestablish tidal marshes to control storm surges which will only get worse with climate change.
I’m sure there are some scenarios where rice fields could be added as additional depth to this buffer, via farm subsidies. It doesn’t matter if it’s profitable, if it’s nearly profitable and it reduces damage from ten, twenty, or even fifty year storms. You can divert money from remediation into prevention.
Does this mean they have to expect sudden floods of salt water? Pokkali rice in Kerala is supposed to thrive in that.
Why should the goverment discourage such production instead of leave people free to pursue it? Do you expect (high) social costs from a failure there?
Farming sector in the UK was heavily subsidised in the past, not sure of today or what if any support rice farmers might be able to get.
I agree it shouldn't be "discouraged" (as a private enterprise) but it seems reasonable to debate whether they should receive subsidies or grants etc.
EDIT: this looks more like research than production, so I think it makes sense for it to be supported by grants.
Farming sector as a whole is heavily subsidised in most of Europe, but that doesn't mean everything you do as a farmer (and every crop) is subsidised.
Eg potatoes grown for eating are almost completely unregulated and unsubsidised in the EU. Similar with grapes grown for eating. In comparison with potatoes grown for starch and wine grown for grapes. It's crazy.
To be fair, without subsidies only fools would grow wine for grapes! (Sorry, just my way of pointing out a minor typo. If you edit without replying to me I'll delete this.)
In general food production enjoys heavy government support...
... but then again, many industries do too. Libertarian tech bros think they are "self made" even in fact the government supported them with absolutely massive support, from government tech purchasing to supporting R&D and higher education to tax breaks to deregulation and more.
Rant off.
Your average industry can't enjoy net subsidies: the money has to come from somewhere, so you have to tax at least as much as you subsidise. (Modulo shifting taxation around over time via debt.)
Though I'm not sure what you are trying to say with your comment? Just because someone is in favour of reducing subsidies, doesn't necessary mean they want to abolish the government?
Just like Bob being in favour of a weightloss diet for a morbidly obese Alice, friend doesn't mean Bob wants their normal sized friend Charlie to starve himself to death (nor does Bob want Alice to continue losing weight once she reached a healthy weight).
The fact that you wrote this in reply to me makes me think you missed the point of my comment, which didn't actually have anything to do with subsidies - I was just pointing out they "growing wine to make grapes" is the wrong way round ;)
[flagged]
>>subsidize rice production or rice import tariffs
>Why should the goverment discourage
These are government measures to encourage rice production, not discourage it.
> But such things tend to be very economically inefficient, so the government would be wise to discourage such production.
Absurd comment. Governments should subsidise local food production to whatever extent necessary, especially when it's economically inefficient, because stable staple food supplies should not be external dependencies.
Rice isn't exactly a staple food in the UK.
And you can still have efficient food production in the UK, it's just that small artisanal "under 100 food-miles" farming is inefficient.
> Rice isn't exactly a staple food in the UK.
Rice is now very much a staple food in the UK.
> And you can still have efficient food production in the UK, it's just that small artisanal "under 100 food-miles" farming is inefficient.
Economically inefficient, but diversity of local supply in a key factor in food security, and as a hopeless food insecure country, the UK should be diversifying as much as possible, especially to crops that will thrive in the coming climate.
> Rice is now very much a staple food in the UK.
I knew a Brit who described chicken tikka masala as the national dish of the UK.
Unless there is direct food security issue, not sure why inefficiency as such would warrant government interference.
Have you been paying attention to the farming sector in the last 5yr?
There's plenty of problems reminiscent of the 30s after the whole chain has been kicked around due to labour from Brexit, supply due to Brexit, access to markets from Brexit and then the joy of dealing with the cv19 lockdowns.
The sector is still facing real financial problems and none of the last few governments have seen farmers as anything other than land owning cash cows.
But why would that lead to the government discouraging rice farming?
Food security issues dont necessarily give you enough time to prepare.
> not sure why inefficiency as such would warrant government interference
Agreed
Lotta people who eat more rice than legacy Britons have moved there though.
Staple foods tend to change with circumstances, they aren’t set in stone.
What about Rice Krispies?
No they should really really be discussing things like this.
This is like trying to claim bioethanol is somehow carbon negative.
It's broken from a farming standpoint (and we're a nation starting to face issues with production. Notice how I say starting not we're starving there's several world's of different yet)
It's broken from an economic standpoint because you're going to try and take on the whole of Asia who could crush you in a single shipment.
It's broken from a mindset perspective. British wine may be one that grabs interest over here like British vodka. But people will not pay 10x or more for British rice. It will be seen as a stupid concept or idea.
It's broken because again... Who in Britain is clamouring for more rice options? This is a product type which is already over saturated at the normal supermarket, let alone the choices when you're willing to shop online.
If there's no discouragement to projects like this idiots will run the land into ruin, lose a lot of money. Drive away needed capital from farms looking to turn around their fortunes and damage the sector.
I'm not saying British farms are about to collapse and we're all about to starve here, but the sector is struggling.
> But people will not pay 10x or more for British rice.
Unless and until it's the only carbohydrate source available due to some global war or disaster. All countries should be aiming for domestic food security and diversity.
And fuel diversity. And manufacturing diversity. And mineral extraction diversity. And so on and on. But at which point this becomes ridiculous?
The UK Energy Security Plan does at least try to cover essential energy needs (food production, hospitals, defence, civil powers and authorities, etc) indefinitely from domestic supply.
The Defence Industrial Strategy does the same for essential manufacturing capabilities.
Raw material supply security is the purview of many government bodies, including MOD, BGS, and more.
> But at which point this becomes ridiculous?
Securing the food supply to your population, the absolute most basic of human needs along with the water and shelter, is the furthest thing from ridiculous.
> British
> domestic food security and diversity.
Aside from switzerland who else is so well placed for this in geographical Europe?
ITS AN ISLAND
Britain can't feed itself. Blockade is the greatest threat to Britain.
Most EU countries can feed feed themselves.
I've got a lovely bridge to sell you, only slightly used...
Please educate yourself because that statement is just factually incorrect. That's not a talking point, that's just wrong.
I am a former knowledgeable CBRN person and sat on advisory panels for my own countries energy, food, and medical security policies, so while certainly not a food security expert, I probably have more exposure than most to the food security challenges of island nations in the East Atlantic.
Great Britain, which excludes NI, has a roughly 60% calorie self-sufficiency ratio and quite literally cannot feed itself without imports.
Ireland and Northern Ireland can many times over, in principle even if spare parts and fuel were blockaded, although it would be an uninspiring diet.
I am certainly open to further education as this area interests me and my country is woefully unprepared for any interruption to global supply chains, especially in relation to fuel and medical supplies, so I continue to make policy submissions in this area.
No.
That's comparing production means today with an inflated population due to uncontrolled migration. (Main confronting factor to pop growth in last few years so can't be avoided as topic).
Comparing blockade numbers to peace time production is a false equivalency.
Am I saying there won't be unrest no, but you just started a scenario by blockading Britain. If you think we don't produce enough food, it's about the only thing we actual do produce here other than empty city promises and patents. The country would eat itself before the means of food production hits the top 5 of our problems if honestly bet.
The country has capacity to engage in intensive farming of several means which we currently do not because of animal rights concerns, lack of manpower etc. In a blockade scenario animal rights go out the window to a starving populace. Food waste is addressed in several means and we start engaging in battery farming and crop yields yes move to calorific content vs serving the Ritz their flav d'jour.
And let's not pretend NI is included under any sensible scenario other than the British military blockading and subsuming control of RoI. There's no scenario where a blockade of Britain as an island would leave us "struggling to feed NI with RoI being supported by the European block" as another absolutist.
> The country has capacity to engage in intensive farming of several means which we currently do not because of animal rights concerns, lack of manpower etc. In a blockade scenario animal rights go out the window to a starving populace. Food waste is addressed in several means and we start engaging in battery farming and crop yields yes move to calorific content vs serving the Ritz their flav d'jour.
Not to be rude, but your Government, MOD, and think-tanks disagree with you. The latent capacity of UK agriculture is estimated to be able to feed approximately 80-90% of the population, which for context is similar to the amount of food available (including external aid) in South Sudan now.
> And let's not pretend NI is included under any sensible scenario other than the British military blockading and subsuming control of RoI. There's no scenario where a blockade of Britain as an island would leave us "struggling to feed NI with RoI being supported by the European block" as another absolutist.
The UK does not have the ability to militarily conquer Ireland, let alone survive the consequences, so this is, well, delusional.
I honestly do not think you are well informed enough to form a valid opinion on this topic, which explains your reactive and emotion-driven comments
80%+ at peace time. I.e. not with mandated farming practices and not with a national focus as part of priority to fix this.
Unlike the Sudan we don't produce the remaining 15%+/-5 because we're a wealthy nation and can engage and have become semi-reliant a little on trade. And our tastes have changed as a result of the availability of luxury goods. This is wildly different to not having capacity or infrastructure which can be tweaked. (I'm not saying magically tonnes of milk and honey appear from nowhere) And this is ignoring the scary word of rationing.
Sudan either can't, won't or is constrained from producing the missing part of the food required to feed their people. But that's more linked to US foreign policy than this hypothetical discussion otherwise.
Edit in not even touching RoI vs UK army. I'm not pretending any show down would be bloodless, but the UK has a few plain numerical overwhelming superiorities. Again stating simple facts.
> 80%+ at peace time.
No, in any time, as is the definition of latent capacity.
> Edit in not even touching RoI vs UK army. I'm not pretending any show down would be bloodless, but the UK has a few plain numerical overwhelming superiorities. Again stating simple facts.
The Cold War British Armed Forces were unable to hold the farmland of Northern Ireland against 3,000 members of PIRA, let alone the current forces against the island now. Those are the facts in the history books.
You are delusional, living in a worldview that never matched reality and diverges more each day.
Latent capacity of system as it stands.
Changes mean things change!
Should they incentivise rice, which doesn't grow great in the climate of economic environment of the UK, or wheat, which does?
Generally both, but rice will grow well, potentially better than wheat, in the coming climate.
Unless the North Atlantic current dies. Ooof.
It's wild that you got downvoted for this reasonable take.
Right next door, Ireland had a little problem with potatoes and a massive famine resulted from it. Had the island had a more diverse mix of crops, things probably would've been a little less severe.
There are currently pests and infections spreading around the world and destroying crops. Bananas are undergoing a repeat of their last global crop failure and isolated pockets of uninfected bananas are becoming more valuable. Natural rubber had a disease that wiped out most rubber trees. It's not impossible for wheat in Europe to be hit with a plague in the near future and absolutely wipe out crops and food sources for hundreds of millions. There's war in Eastern Europe that risks spreading, and if it does, embargoes are possible. Investing now in alternative local food sources is simply smart.
Profit now isn't everything. The problem that's gutting the west now is how countries shipped off every industry to other cheaper countries because it was "more profitable and nothing bad will happen." Now the youth are left with less than their parents had.
Plus the article addresses this being done as a climate change-proofing measure. With the UK getting hotter, rice grows better and better. Other crops may not.
> Right next door, Ireland had a little problem with potatoes
Common misconception: Ireland actually had a little problem with the British. Even during the most intense parts of the famine Ireland was still exporting food. The British absentee landowners simply did not care that their peasants were starving. The ruling party wanted to let the "free market" solve it, with some politicians considering it "divine providence" or a "lack of moral character". This was made even worse by refusing aid to small landowners, which killed sustenance farming.
People often forget that it was a European famine, rather than an Irish one. The Irish potato yield was reduced by 30%, while the potato yield in Denmark was reduced by 50%, The Netherlands by 71%, and Belgium by 87%! Tens of thousands died in those countries, but it is only Ireland where the population was reduced from 8 million to 4 million.
Monoculture (as decided upon by the absentee British landlords) was indeed the direct cause, but it only got as bad as it did because the British elite chose to let them die. Had they imported alternative crops to feed their peasants, or even just stopped potato export, it would've been far less severe.
Yes, the fact Britain was brutal to the Irish is no secret.
But had Ireland not had a monoculture that all rotted away, things would've been less severe. And what you've said only further proves the point I was making: you should grow other crops so that you're not dependent on imports. Britain wouldn't let the Irish import food. It's not impossible for a situation to arise where a country doesn't let Britain import food. Growing alternative grains is the British looking at their own brutal history and learning from it.
> But had Ireland not had a monoculture that all rotted away, things would've been less severe.
Ireland didn't have a monoculture. It exported other crops and meat throughout the famine and required calories never exceeded food production on the island.
The only monoculture was on tenant farmer's personal gardens, which were monocultures by necessity.
I'm glad Singapore doesn't subscribe to this notion.
What are you talking about? The Singapore Food Agency was created primarily to increase domestic food production even though it is extremely economically inefficient singularly to try to improve food security, which is completely dependent on imports and the precarious freedom of navigation in the straits.
Sure, they might want to increase it a bit, but I don't think anyone sane is going for autarky in Singapore, ie 'stable staple food supplies should not be external dependencies.' Not even the Singapore Food Agency.
I think you made a flippant comment not realising how seriously a threat that food insecurity poses to Singaporean independence and now feel you can't back down, but you're just wrong on this one.
30X30 aims to supply 30% of nutritional needs by 2030 using only 1% of the land precisely to make progress towards 100% calorie self-sufficiency.
If this is the case why is rice one of the 4 major crops of the world? (genuine questions)
Rice can give you very high yields per acre, even if the yield per man-hour isn't necessarily that high.
If your climate is suitable, you can have multiple rice crops per year on the same field. Eg 3 crops per year is common in Thailand.
Ah, I got the impression from the comment that it was not space efficient (massive fields).
It seems like smaller fully automated fields could also do?
It also might depend on what they mean by yield. Rice has a high yield in terms of resulting food content/calories but rice is generally pretty cheap per kilogram. Other higher profit crops may result in a higher yield in terms of revenue but lower yield in terms of calories/nutrition.
Oh, the bigger fields still have very high yield per acre.
> It seems like smaller fully automated fields could also do?
In principle, yes, but your machines will probably be idle much of the time, if there's not enough land to keep them busy. So it's not worth it, unless the machines get really cheap.
The reason you see people planting rice seedlings in wet fields in movies and TV is that the rice being planted is already the second or third crop of the year. Someone somewhere sowed rice seed densely in a single plot, to use to replant several times as much acreage by transplanting.
They can also in some cases raise fish in the same terrace, and herbs or other crops on the walls between them.
Farmers of Forty Centuries is an out of copyright book from ~1903 that details the findings of a research group from IIRC England who wanted to understand how the Chinese have been farming the same fields for four millennia without exhausting them. They were doing three crops a year back 120 years ago. A lot of it is down to accumulating silt over time by irrigating with silty water, and dredging the irrigation canals every so often to start new fields with the take.
The rice attract bugs. The fish eat the bugs. The fish excrement fertilizes the rice.
Fish-rice farming is an excellent example of Harmony in design.
My African violets were always amazing when I still kept fish. Any time they were looking ragged, a cup of fish tank water would not only restore them but force a bloom within a handful of weeks.
> The rice attract bugs. The fish eat the bugs. The fish excrement fertilizes the rice.
How does this square with conservation of matter?
Venus fly traps work because insects have a larger range to forage and they bring protein to the plants in an environment where soil nitrogen is a challenge.
"On a per acre basis, rice produces the most calories at 14 million per acre." [1]
[1] Which California Crop Yields the Most Calories?
https://agdatanews.substack.com/p/which-california-crop-yiel...
Between the rices paddies and the fish ponds you can co-locate in the rice paddies, is why India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have almost 1.7 billion people.
Or shrimp (in Louisiana)
Because Asia is full of cheap labor ?
Ely (a few miles south of this project) used to be an island with a large eel fishing industry, from which it derives it's name. The Fens were drained in the 17th century with help from Dutch engineers, and I believe much of the area is now below sea level; the river Ouse is raised above the surrounding land with embankments. I've ran past some of the pumping stations on the Roman lodes myself: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/125065713
I wonder what the risk is of rising sea levels to this project?
East Anglia and Cambridgeshire are both highly at risk from rising sea levels - we might see the effects in our lifetimes. https://cambridgeshirepeterborough-ca.gov.uk/news/new-climat...
> The Fens were drained in the 17th century with help from Dutch engineers, [...]
Fun fact: the English tried to drain the fens a few times on their own, but only succeeded once someone had the bright idea to involve the Dutch.
And the technology got better, and everyone got richer, and the population was higher, and…
Paddy fields aren't the only way to grow rice, you can do rows and flood soil alongside, you can do upland style dry fields rice planting.
I guess the point of the experiment was with climate and increasing flooded landscape (like the fens?) But the risk would be salt incursion as much as anything else.
If it's climate (temperature) alone, it didn't need paddy fields. I think a lot of Australian rice is irrigated but not full flooded fields, or a reduced flood compared to traditional approaches. More amenable to massive fields and a water storage system. Recently saw a cotton farm at St George and the (huge!) fields are groomed with a laser level to control for irrigation flow, I think they do the same for rice, when it makes sense.
I think the article pointed out that wet fields help preserve the fenlands peat.
If it dries out it shrinks, and the organic content is consumed generating CO₂
After manually searching for the 2 subscript I found out one can install and use a scientific keyboard.
K₂SO₄ - not the imperial droid
Completely OT, but which scientific keyboard did you choose? I was somewhat expecting to find a scientific layout for Gboard.
I just use Google for obscure Unicode characters or emojis. Usually there's a result I can copy / paste.
https://www.google.com/search?q=2+subscript+unicode
SciKey on the iPhone.
The free version works OK, and for 99p it can do something fancy, I’m not sure what though.
Subscripts especially for CO₂, has been irksome for me for ages.
re-naturalising them also helps preserve them. That should be getting a higher priority if that's the concern
It's just a climate issue to grow rice outdoor in England.
Rice is grown in Southern France and Northern Italy. So it is unsurprising that this may be moving North, as summers het warmer, and this summer was almost Mediterranean in England.
And it was Saharan in the Mediterranean.
Rice crop requires climate, soil, water, fertilizers, good seeds and machinery. In India, the second crop for rice is grown through the winter which is not much warmer than British summer. Also England has black soils with less sand, which are good for rice. Looks like all conditions are met.
Isn't rice very labor-intensive? Didn't the Brits just recently get rid of their cheap(er) labor?
Recent advances in farm machinery reduced dependency on labour significantly, even in Asian villages. I was shocked to see drones doing fertilizer and pesticide spraying in the remote villages that do not even have proper roads and drinking water.
Which country was this? Thailand?
India. The drones (and other farm machinery) are operated on rental, not owned by farmers. There is hardly any farm worker available in villages, due to migration to towns and cities.
Well, if they keep up their economic policies, the price of labour will drop all by itself.
Don't worry, Id cards will fix it
There’s a UK Centre for Hydrology, and Ecology video to go along with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UklW0ELgaME
Rice is grown in New Jersey as well, it's just expensive (they do the dry field type): https://bluemoonacres.com/rice/
Also apparently in New York: https://cals.cornell.edu/news/2019/10/can-rice-be-grown-new-...
Why is this a surprise? I think people have forgotten that the First Nations people near Lake Superior had rice as their staple crop. Growing wild in the shallows of lakes and ponds. Reseeded by being intentionally sloppy with the harvest.
If it can grow in Minnesota it sure as fuck can grow in the UK.
The wild rice grown near the Great Lakes (Zizania palustris) is an entirely different species than the rice typically eaten elsewhere (Oryza sativa). There is no particular reason to presume that both can be grown in the same environment.
That is a different, albeit closely related, genus.
I wonder whether that might grow well in the UK.
It’s been a bit since I was offered wild rice in a dish but is out there in the culinary repertoire. Not going to be used for making sushi or curry of course, but it has a place, and could have more.
50% more protein, but unfortunately still 0% vitamin A.
Welcome to the Ricefields - Pink guy
[dead]
> We often think of rice as a tropical plant, but it does grow in colder climates.
..? Is Japan and Korea tropical for the British?
The BBC seems to love to ram in a climate change narrative in every possible hole it can find. While it's a serious problem, trying to fit it into every story just starts to make me skeptical of every climate change related things they report
It probably has a lot less to do with air temperature and more to do with amount of precipitation and humidity. You also don't have bamboo growing in Europe or the Mediterranean. It's not because it's not hot enough in Italy or Egypt
Just look at some other BBC article and they explain there is a impending water shortage in Britain.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj939kpnvx8o
Humans are lazy and bad at preventing long-term problems. We need to be reminded frequently, otherwise we get complacent and take naps instead of saving our species.
Yes propaganda only works when used frequently
I would rephrase that as anything repeated frequently enough is perceived as true, no matter it's merits.
This is why there is a global crisis of confidence in science. B/c science is constantly portrayed as a tool to push agendas and policies (that are maybe even necessary) and not an exploration of facts. It's done so blatantly and transparently that anyone with a skeptical mind is just turned off by the whole thing
This isn't an indictment of science or scientists, but of science reporting. If the story is climate-change related then it's reported. If it's not, then they find some climate change related angle. If they can't then the story is usually dropped.
Science journalism has a lot of issues but I think those problems are across journalism and not especially unique to science. Over referencing familiar narratives, click bait headlines, piss poor editing...you'll find this in all types of news out there.
Should science journalist hold themselves to a better, special standard? True. Especially with the age old war that's waged on it by those who hold power through selling incredibly unscientific world views. But I think the overt actions these forces are more to blame than poor science journalism. People don't like inconvenient facts, people will forever be victims to a voice making a problem go away by denying the problem even exists.
I do not think scientists are entirely blame free, and institutions certainly share part of the blame. University PR departments frequently spin stuff to get attention from journalists (most commonly everything is a huge breakthrough, preferably related to an issue already in the news).
My guess is that the underlying issue is funding.
I also think there are often communication failures from many scientists - for example failing to distinguish between personal opinion, consensus opinion, and well proven things.
On top of that, of course, individual scientists are still fallible and biased like any human being, especially about things they feel strongly about.
A good journalist would speak to multiple people in the field with different opinions, ask them questions like how well proven a theory actually is, etc. Pity they are not more common!
>> "Nobody has tried this before, but with climate change, we have crops that, 10 years ago, we wouldn't have thought would be viable."
That's pretty interesting and relevant. Doesn't seem like they're shoehorning it in at all.
It's totally possible climate change has caused it a lot more viable to growing rice in the UK. I don't want to say they're lieing. I'm not some agricultural specialist to argue with them. But the way it's reported is so lazy and has such big holes in basic logic that it makes anyone reading it just highly skeptical.
There is an impending water shortage in Britain — since the water companies were privatized, they stopped building additional reservoir capacity.
Maybe they should stop the massive increase in population if it cannot be sustained by the resources in the island.
"if" is doing the heavy lifting there.
The privatised water companies chose to stop building additional reservoir capacity. From what I've read, the UK pipes currently leak about the same percentage of the water going through them, as the percentage by which the population went up since privatisation.
It's money and incentives, not a property of the geography.
When they try to they get stopped by NIMBYs.
Climate change affecting which crops can be grown is why a (small) British wine industry has appeared.
> It probably has a lot less to do with air temperature and more to do with amount of precipitation and humidity. You also don't have bamboo growing in Europe or the Mediterranean.
No idea what the point here is? Was it to demonstrate that the BBC‘s grasp of botany is poor?
Bamboo grows just fine in Europe. In the UK, some even argue it should be considered an invasive species.
> Was it to demonstrate that the BBC‘s grasp of botany is poor?
Sure, that's one way to put it. If you don't know the topic you're reporting on, then maybe don't report on it? I'm not a botanist, and I can smell the BS already.
To their credit, they do link a paper which I assume explains things better (though a cursory look seems to show it's not really about rice)
And furthermore.. if you're reporting on some science, and you're not an expert.. it helps to ask people not associate with the research for an outside assessment. Science reporting at the BBC is a disaster. Nothing is fact checked. They just ask the researchers and eat up whatever is said and add a layer of sensationalism on top. It's the same across all their writing and podcast/radio programs.
At the BBC, eating up whatever is said and adding a layer of sensationalism on top is not limited to only science reporting.
They seem a bit more careful when it comes to political stats or economic figures.
I enjoy their Behind the Stats podcast:
https://www.bbc.com/audio/series/p02nrss1
(though also often sloppy)
I think b/c politicians are expected to lie. Whereas scientists are viewed as naiive cute furry animals that wouldn't spin the truth. You never hear them take a scientist to task or ask probing questions. It's really a different type of interview - where the holy gurus of academia are blessing the reporter with knowledge
> Sure, that's one way to put it. If you don't know the topic you're reporting on,...
Am I missing some irony or subtle sarcasm here? You're attacking the BBC for being inaccurate - with an argument containing a claim which is not just inaccurate but completely false - about the habitats which support growing bamboo.
> and I can smell the BS already
Where is this BS? You haven't identified a single sentence containing a scientific inaccuracy as far as I can see.
"Smell" is a weasel word - a way of avoiding the effort of actually presenting an argument or evidence - or even using the opportunity for some introspection about your own emotional reaction to an article because it mentions climate change.
I've read the article - it uses the usual light entertainment style favored by the BBC - which is the reason I don't bother with the BBC at all. But unless you're actually offended by being reminded of the existence of AGW, I can't see anything at all offensive, inaccurate or false in it.
Ah rice that cheap crop that requires lots of farm land and without golden rice is leaving certain vitamins...
Yes _that_ is the product you choose to grow. Not idk products popular amongst British customers...
Do you mean frozen oven ready chips?
> Not idk products popular amongst British customers...
... Are you under the impression that rice isn't popular in the UK?
there's absolutely no shortage in such a saturated market.
Besides I'm referring to the british who just use the white plastic as a side for kormas, vindaloo or a rice pudding.
Pretending this is economically viable is short sighted at extreme best.