The recent extreme heat waves that have swept across the UK and Europe and the accompanying droughts are putting Britain at risk of its ‘worst food security crisis in decades’, analysts have warned.
According to analysts at the investment bank Shore Capital the impact of the five heatwaves and prolonged dry conditions threaten to destroy farmers’ harvests leading to food shortages later this year.
Around three quarters of England has been plunged into drought following the driest July on record with the Environment Agency (EA) saying that 71.3% of England is experiencing ‘flash drought’.
Flash droughts develop at great speed through a combination of very low rainfall and high temperatures.
The dramatic rise in temperatures are damaging wheat, vegetable crops and milk production Shore Capital warned, leaving the UK increasingly reliant on importing food grown abroad.
With homegrown food production severely damaged, the UK would increasingly become dependent on expensive imported grain.
Shore Capital’s Akhil Patel and Clive Black said this would trigger higher prices for UK consumers, adding ‘The UK has not been so close to a food security challenge for many decades.’
Alistair Carmichael, chairman of the environment, food and rural affairs committee, said on Monday that the full effect of food inflation will hit later this year, saying that shoppers must brace themselves for ‘further food price inflation shocks’.
In fact, global warming has brought about extreme and dangerous conditions across the world and threatens to heap yet more misery on the working class and masses.
Added to this incendiary mix are the repercussions from the imperialist war waged by the US and Israel against Iran, in a desperate and failed attempt to reconquer the Middle East.
This inevitably led to the closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz, which has had a massive impact on oil and gas prices, driving up the costs of food production in the UK and EU, as farmers face sky high increases in diesel.
In addition, the closure of the Strait has cut off supplies of fertilisers essential to agricultural food production.
The Bank of England is also worried about this crisis.
The Bank is not worried about the danger of workers and their families going hungry, and facing being unable to afford even basic necessities of life, but on the danger of workers demanding pay rises to meet the rocketing cost-of-living inflation.
Thomas Pugh, an economist at RSM UK, stated that ‘The Bank worries that higher inflation expectations could encourage workers to seek larger pay rises’ fuelling ‘persistent’ inflation.
In February this year the University of York published a report on the effects of major disruptions to food supplies triggered by events like war, extreme weather or cyber-attacks on the UK.
This report from 38 food systems experts argued that ‘long-standing structural issues are leaving the UK dangerously exposed’ to a food crisis.
The report outlines how major international conflicts, like imperialist wars in Ukraine and Iran, lead inevitably to trade disruptions, surging energy prices disrupting agriculture and food supply chains, leading to escalating food costs.
The University of York warns this would ‘disproportionately affect low-income households’ and lead to a situation where ‘public trust in government and business could erode to the point of unrest or riots.’
It will not be simply ‘unrest or riots’, but a revolutionary uprising by workers and youth, not prepared to be driven into starvation by a historically redundant capitalist system, that can only survive through war, and by imposing destitution and hunger on workers and their children.
The most urgent task today is to build up the WRP and Young Socialists to provide the leadership required for the working class to put an end to capitalism by demanding its trade unions call a general strike to bring down the Labour government and bring in a workers government that will nationalise the banks and major industries, building a socialist planned economy. Only the victory of the British socialist revolution will provide a future for workers and youth today!
