How Secure Is Your Food Supply? (Part One) 

Sobering thoughts on the very real possibility of a major disruption to our food supply

America’s trade tariffs seem set to further push our national economy, and indeed that of the whole world, into a global recession. But have you ever wondered where your food supply would come from if the recession becomes a depression similar to that experienced a century ago (the 1920s), or we were suddenly thrown into the wake of a national or international emergency that resulted in a major disruption to our food supply?

Food Vulnerability

We have not had any real self-sufficiency in food security in the UK since the early nineteenth century, prior to mass migration from rural areas to the newly-industrialised cities. Following the end of World War II, the introduction of the 1947 Agricultural Act began to drive an agenda to industrialise farming, with the result that the very companies producing the chemicals to spray our crops are the very same ones producing the medicines to correct the side-effects of eating them!

Since the sixties we have undergone a complete transformation in what we eat:  no longer relying on seasonal home-grown foods, but increasingly on imported ingredients that we feel we need to service our changed tastes and multi-cultural diets. Many do not even know how to make a meal from scratch, preferring ready meals and bottled sauces that are full of unhealthy preservatives and additives.

The result of this is that two thirds of our population is overweight, with a half of these being considered obese. The true cost of eating refined, processed, over-chemicalised, hormone-induced foods from the industrialised modern farming is our national health.
In addition to this, our food industry wastes a third of what is produced, while a further third of what is bought is wasted or thrown away in the home as consumers pay strict observance to ‘best before’ or ‘sell by' dates, both of which are only meant as guidelines.

... the majority of our population live in urban areas and have become ever more dependent on fewer, larger suppliers who can withhold food stock at will and charge us whatever they like.

My father grew the majority of our vegetables in our garden and in a massive allotment, a trend that is returning as many are beginning to wake up to our vulnerability over food supply and are once again seeing the importance of learning how to grow their own crops – although in many instances this is fuelled from the fear inspired by the ‘climate change’ agenda. To ‘grow your own' is fine for those who have a back garden, allotment or small holding, but the majority of our population live in urban areas and have become ever more dependent on fewer, larger suppliers who can withhold food stock at will and charge us whatever they like.

The 2030 Agenda

Behind all of this is the working out of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, launched by President Obama and Pope Francis in Rome in 2015, and adopted by the United Nations. If you are unaware of what this entails then you can check out the seventeen goals of the agenda here. In short, it means that sustainability in the environment is being elevated over food production.

So, farmers are being incentivised to give up their land to renewable energy (solar and wind farms), housing, re-wilding, non-food production business on agricultural land such as glamping, herbal leys, forestry and industrial parks – all of which implies real implications for long-term farming and food security. The Governments changes to Agricultural Relief for Inheritance Tax will inevitably lead in the long term to many small farms needing to be sold. Under the terms of the 2030 Agenda, we might well expect these farms to be bought up by the larger conglomerates.

As part of its 150^th anniversary, Sainsburys have issued a Future of Food Report, in which it outlines its aims to produce ‘planet friendly’ foods that will encourage consumers to eat non-meat alternatives (e.g.: seaweed and jellyfish!) driving the need for further research and investment in agro-biodiversity.

The Governments changes to Agricultural Relief for Inheritance Tax will inevitably lead in the long term to many small farms needing to be sold.

How do we respond?

What then, would be the outcome for us, for you, if something seriously interrupted our status quo? Think: how would you feed yourself, your family or neighbours? It is one thing to aspire to growing our own but, as I know through experience, it is something entirely different to actually grow food that is edible and preserve the surplus in such a way that it remains edible for the winter months when fresh garden produce is scarce.

To do so for my own household required a process over several years of diarising mistakes in order to ensure they were not repeated, adapting to the vagaries of living at altitude - above the snowline - and lots of practical investment and preparation. To achieve similar results for a whole local community would require infrastructure, wisdom and a much larger support network. Even then, it is practically impossible to grow and preserve the sheer volume of food needed to feed ourselves for one year without resorting to imports.

The UK does have an official Government Resilience Framework, published in 2022, but it offers little on the role of the public in civil food resilience. The 2025 National Risk Register only conceives of one direct food impact, that of food supply contamination, which is seriously downplaying what specialists in the food industry regard as a likely outcome. On 22^nd May 2024, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, gave a speech on resilience, in which he advised the public to store three days’ worth of food at home. This appears to have followed the launch of a ‘Prepare’ website by the Emergency Planning College, but it was issued without explanation or context and failed to offer any form of strategic guidance or infrastructure, especially for those who do not have any means to grow their own.

In World Wars I and II, the British public had to be brought into active engagement because food supply became stretched and could not be taken for granted. As normal methods of food provision were disrupted, food supply was brought under Government control. We produced only about a third of our food and large sections of the population were underfed and nutritionally poor.

... those of us who claim to understand the times and the seasons also need to take this threat seriously and consider together what God’s wisdom and strategies might be to us.

My submariner uncle risked his life in the Atlantic, patrolling the essential food convoys from America. But with the very real threat of food blockades, and the convoys being blown up, rationing was introduced; public advice on growing food was widely issued, people learned new skills, a ‘war on waste’ was introduced and a massive effort was undertaken to turn non-agricultural land into food producing areas.

With our world appearing to again be teetering on the brink of a global war, those of us who claim to understand the times and the seasons also need to take this threat seriously and consider together what God’s wisdom and strategies might be to us.

In a forthcoming article I will share how God spoke to me about this and the subsequent journey my husband and I went on, together with Nick Szkiler, in order to follow the wisdom and strategies given to us from the scriptures.