The war in Ukraine changes everything

HEART-BREAKING to watch the Ukrainian people brutalised by war, a democratic sovereign nation battered by the hammer and sickle of a communist regime, something we hoped had been confined in Europe to the history books.

Delighted to hear Michael Gove acknowledging that the UK needs to support its strategic industries of defence, energy and food.

Welcome that planned defence cuts have been ditched as NATO braces for a possible expansion of Russian imperialistic ambition, accept that the severe short-term energy crisis (500 litres of heating oil up from £355 to £635 in a fortnight) will revive North Sea oil and gas exploration and fracking appears back on the agenda, hopefully in the short term.

What will be done to secure our self-sufficiency and security in food supply? Artificial fertiliser prices prior to the invasion of Ukraine more than doubled from those in the spring of 2021. I was reminded of my question to the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs at a conference four or five years ago. I asked what measures he proposed to introduce to protect food supply from the fluctuations and price spikes inherent in a free global market. New markets such as the Chinese buying offal to enable farmers to make silk purses from sows’ ears was his amusing and much quoted reply.

Prudence currently demands a system of support that guarantees a reasonable return on the production of essential commodities so that, irrespective of what happens in the wider world, our farmers can remain solvent whilst delivering a consistent supply of food at a price people can afford. We do not need to look too far back into the history books for the answer. In response to the shortages created by the Second World War we practiced a price support system that maintained strategic food security, up to a point two or three years after we entered the European Economic Community (now the EU).

I encourage you to lobby your MP for a similar UK system to be reintroduced today. We must also remember that before the intervention proposed by Keynes the global free market stagnated in the great depression.

Richard Hosking Devon