Food, farming and nitrile gloves

Supply chains, maritime trade, nearshoring and onshoring manufacturing from China and the far East, diversification (HT Mr Drew and C@W) and such things are part of the national dialogue for the first time in a generation. Possibly since Suez. And there are any number of Who Knew? realities being revealed. I'm learning, even from Twitter. @Uncle_Albert_ posted a thread pertinent to the PPE debate asking us to remember that latex and nitrile both come mostly from Malaysian rubber (Albert claims) and that as trees take several years to grow, the current global demand for gloves may easily outstrip all possible production.

Of course it may be that if we don't buy tyres because no-one is going anywhere, there will be more rubber for gloves, but it won't be anytime soon. And even if we push to the head of the 'Top Glove' (the world's largest single manufacturer of latex gloves, he says) queue and buy a batch FOB port, you may still have great trouble getting it because of the shortage of ships and containers, many also locked down in port. Ha, OK, so you'll fly them in - except much of the previous commercial freight capacity was in the bellies of passenger aircraft, mostly also now grounded.

And then there's food.

Back in the days, I kept half a dozen hens running in a little six-tree orchard at the back of my little cottage in Needham Market. I supplemented their foraging with frost-damaged spuds bought by the sack and similar, and with Pauls and Whites layers' mash (cue Edward Spalton). The only problem was, it not only stank of fish but made the eggs taste of fish. Some time later, I think the feed manufacturers reduced fishmeal in their mixes and increased grain, corn and suchlike. Back then we were such destructive bastards that we would hoover up fish from the sea just to crush the entire catch for animal feed. Now every fish counts - and we will need every square nautical mile of our exclusive economic zone from the end of the year.

Not only do we only produce half the food we eat, but much of it is the wrong food, according to Tim Lang. The reviews of his 'Feeding Britain' in both the Telegraph and in the Guardian are instructive. Firstly, we're eating far too much Ultra Processed Food, he says - fruit loops, biscuits and chicken nuggets - and it's killing our guts (cue Stephen J) and making us obese, diabetic and natural Wuhan virus victims. Half the UK diet is UPF. It may seem cheap at the supermarket, but the true cost must include the increased health care costs of eating harmful crap that makes us fat. And then we're growing the rest the wrong way.

Instead of growing maize and cereals to feed livestock for meat, we should use that acreage to grow fruit and veg instead, and put animals out to grass. We could up our self-sufficiency in food from 50% to 80% if we do it right. And farmers and fishermen must get much more of the price we pay for our food - "Currently primary producers do most of the work but are only left with 8 per cent of the Gross Value Added from food"

And to be frank, gaining a diet rich in fish, seafood, grass-fed beef, seasonal greenstuffs and natural butter and cheese and losing one packed with fruit loops, reconstituted chicken, carcass slurry burgers, chemicals, palm oil, fillers and preservatives is, in my opinion, no bad thing.

Chlorine chicken, GM soya, Cheez Wizz and 32oz steaks

Any UK visitor returning from a first trip to the USA came back with food stories. These used to be about quantity - 'All you can eat for $1', regular steaks at 16oz and large at 32oz, piles of pancakes, syrup and bacon strips for breakfast and so on. We were simply astounded at the cheapness and largeness of portions. Then there is the novelty of a manufactured ersatz cheese in an aerosol, and a slight 'Ergh!' at Americans forced to eat GM Frankenstein food and chlorinated chicken. And there you have the British stereotype of American food. Fried chlorine chicken and GM white gravy in the South, hormone and antibiotic saturated factory beef in the North. And each meal triple the entire daily calorie count. 

Friends came home from a US road trip last week, reprising a trip they made seventeen years ago. They were not happy. Everything - food, accommodation, car hire - was no longer cheap. Portions were no longer huge. The $1 breakfast had gone. Cars were smaller and more ... European. And while poor blacks still consumed vast quantities of fried chlorine chicken, the rest of the US had moved upscale. Above all, the real US was absolutely nothing like the box-set US they had expected from watching seventeen years of US serials and soaps. Everything in reality was somehow less American and more global.  

Well, that's trade and globalism. I have no fears that a UK - US trade deal will impose on Britain the stereotype foods of two decades ago. For sure, if our own blacks want fried chicken at £1 for two pieces, imported chlorine chicken is the way to go, but unless it's also Halal it won't crowd out the supermarket shelves. And Waitrose won't stock it. That's consumer choice.