Why we are all under the weather on the food front

Before you choke on your muesli, it compares with a 37% rise in UK and a 26% in Guernsey. So we can’t blame it all on GST. ‘Family food bills to soar’ screamed the headlines a couple of weeks ago. Putting aside the predictable hype of the tabloid press, some of the predictions are indeed now beginning to be felt.

Drought in the traditional ‘bread basket’ of America and a heat-wave in Russia , started the speculation that the resulting poor harvests would inevitably cause a sharp increase in the price of cereals – in particular, wheat, which underpins the entire global food chain.

Normally, what’s bad for one can prove to be a bonus for others, but this year, the perversity of too little rain in the grain-producing regions, and too much falling in the UK and on local soil has hit us with a ‘double whammy’. Only the speculators will turn a profit from a 30% hike in the price of wheat.

Indeed, this year’s awful weather has been particularly demoralising for local farmers. Not only has it resulted in poor quality yields, it’s delayed vital preparations for winter and resulted in the import of expensive feed supplements from the UK. You can trace the effects along the production line. Chicken feed contains wheat & soya, so prices of poultry have increased with eggs up 5p a box.

Pig feed is also up £20 a ton. Despite the producers’ avowed efforts to absorb the rises, they inevitably emerge at point of sale. And if the cost of staple food doesn’t floor you, so-called luxury items, such as wine, which also depend on the vagaries of the weather, have suffered a blow even before Treasury politicians reach for the Budget cosh.

La Mare Wine Estate for instance, which profited from two good seasons is now reporting a 50% drop in yield. Many UK wine producers aren’t even bothering to harvest their crop. We’ve all heard of water-logged fields, strawberries rotting on the ground. It’s all contributed to the woeful 25% drop in the fortunes of the local agricultural industry over the past two years.

You’ll, of course, hear the same tale of doom and gloom in the UK. Indeed, earlier this month, the National Farmers Union reported yields down by 15% barley by 20%, the potato harvest down 15% and poor size and quality of fruit and vegetables. So, who’d go into agriculture? It’s a reasonable question given that wages have fallen by 3% over the past year. The answer probably has more to do with who can afford to leave it. Given that 25% of the island’s land serves the industry, it is a career investment for life, the community can hardly afford to do without. Nevertheless it faces huge obstacles from increasing demand for output and efficiencies, time-sapping bureaucracy, quite apart from the natural climatic obstacles which have been thrown at it.

As a nation we’ve been here before. At the outbreak of the Second World War, two-thirds of British food was imported. Shipping losses forced the government to demand that farmers doubled national output. I learnt this from watching the instructive and engaging ‘Wartime Farm’ currently showing on BBC2. The wartime diktat from Ministry of Food was simply: “More food must be grown for man & beast” From the same programme, I learnt that during the war, the government concentrated on growing wheat, ordering the ploughing up of pasture. By 1943, as conditions grew ever tighter, the Ministry turned to the farmers to double food production, and they responded.

Nowadays, the industry is a by-word for how mechanisation and efficiencies in techniques have kept pace with growing pressure for year-round production. But the market place will always demand more and pricing is not in its hands. Indeed, even during these current difficult times, you are likely to see ‘distortions’ as a result of ‘seasonal’ promotions on the shelves. Needles to say, this leads to resentment that national retail giants have a strangle-hold on the industry. Supermarkets are keen to keep prices down regardless of the upward pressure on farm costs. Our own local supermarkets are susceptible to marketing and pricing strategies and stock-control policies dictated by UK conglomerates, though – according to insiders – one major name bucks the trend with its understanding of fluctuations in the production cycle and a policy of ‘buy local first’. But we can’t do without them.

So what’s afoot? There’s no doubt, we will have to be prepared to accept greater diversity in the produce we buy, Size and shape doesn’t always reflect best value. Globally, we are undoubtedly running out of land; GM is no panacea, and as populations rise, traditional food production is being squeezed by the demands to grow ‘fast-buck’ bio-fuel. In a couple of weeks’ time, Jersey farmers will be joined at Durrell by colleagues and agriculture experts from across the world to discuss the future of the local industry. Meanwhile, we’re promised a comparative review of basic food prices between here and in the UK, by the cumbersomely named ‘Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authority’. Don’t hold your breath. Nature and market forces will have a greater impact than any bureaucrat’s finger-wagging.

Now, what was the other revelation I gleaned from the Wartime Farm programme? Oh yes. Despite the privations, the nation was on the whole healthier during those dark war years when they ate wholesome –if unappetising foods. Tell that to the crisp and burger brigade.