The UK is overpopulated. Someday we could face food shortages.
Not for the first time. At the start of 1939 our population was below 48 million yet we were importing 60 per cent of our food - 55 million tonnes a year. By the end of that year, when the Nazis were sinking resupply ships in the Atlantic, imports had crashed to 12 million tonnes. Readers will be familiar with the various strategies used to keep us fed but a shortage of fertilisers meant that the soil was gradually 'losing heart'; had the war gone on much beyond 1945 and enough transatlantic convoys not gotten through to us we might have been forced to sue for peace.
Since then the population has boomed. The 2021 census says we number nearly 68 million but it could be much more. As long ago as 2007 there were unofficial estimates that the real figure could be 77-80 million.
Everything is fine in our local world of superabundance, so long as we have mechanised farming and artificial fertilisers and Net Zero is not allowed to wipe out our agricultural industry and we can always buy food from foreign countries and our supplies are not blockaded.
That's a lot of ifs.
Do we have any contingency planning, even for short term emergencies?
We used to have a strategic food stockpile to support the population in the wake of a major military attack. In 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (John Gummer) announced a run-down of stocks; this was completed by 1995. 'The stockpile held a very limited variety of food and was not intended to provide a balanced diet or even feed the survivors for any length of time.'
How about the longer term? Using modern farming methods, what size of population could the UK feed if we had no food imports?
According to ChatGPT:
'If the UK maintained its current dietary patterns, including a high consumption of animal products, it could likely support a population of around 30-40 million people.'
'By adopting a predominantly plant-based diet and optimizing agricultural practices, the UK could potentially support 60-80 million people. This would require significant changes in land use and dietary habits, focusing on high-yield crops like cereals, vegetables, and legumes.'
So, Woolton pie and all that.
ChatGPT goes on to say that with intensive agri practices, minimised food waste and an all-veggie diet, maybe that figure could go as high as 100 million. 'This is the upper limit and assumes ideal conditions.'
But that still assumes modern farming techniques largely dependent on artificial fertilisers made from natural gas and petrol and fuelled machinery (red diesel accounts for 67% of energy use on specialist cereal farms)? What if (or when) we lack these things?
Here's the AI 'mid-range estimate':
'If the UK adopted optimized organic farming techniques, including efficient use of animal manures, crop rotations, and renewable energy sources for farming, it might be able to support around 20-30 million people. This would require careful management of resources and a diet low in meat and high in plant-based foods.'
(Low estimate: '15-20 million'; idealized high, '30-35 million.')
A sudden major disruption to the modern system could lead to a population 'correction' which would be dreadful, as people would eat and burn everything to survive and so degrade the environment's carrying capacity. Ecologist William Rees thinks it will happen, and within our lifetime; we must hope he is much too pessimistic, but a failure to plan courts disaster.
What are our options?
We need to abandon Net Zero fantasies and do all we can to foster our farmers. Our economy depends on a high level of cheap energy, in agriculture as in other areas. The allegedly damaging fossil fuels won't last forever; but they may keep us going while we develop reliable, permanent and cost-effective replacements.
And/or we must reduce our population. This would have to happen gradually, over many decades. Until I read 'A Blueprint For Survival' (1972) I had not thought about the demographic challenge involved: how those of working age would be able to support young and old. Elon Musk has said 'Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.'
We have made it harder for ourselves by exporting our industrial capacity, that gave us the wealth with which we could buy what we needed abroad. If you deindustrialise you must depopulate. GDP is a dangerously misleading measure of our economy; a growing but poorly paid population leaves the public finances in a lasting and growing crisis.
We must clap hands and hope that Tinkerbell sends us a competent and far-sighted government for a change.
