Preparing for a possible next major World War

[Secret Weapon]

You do appear to hear a lot of things.

Mainly in my head

I think it was the New European newspaper who said a few years ago that high land prices in Britain make it difficult / expensive to increase domestic farming post-Brexit, but I'm not 100% sure if this is where it came from

 

[Dave]

(Apologies for going a bit OT…)

I think there are a variety of reasons why we aren’t now trying to produce so much food. By the 80s and 90s, the post war European agricultural reforms had been so successful that commodities were in surplus (“butter mountains, wine lakes” etc) and farmers were compelled via the subsidy system (C.A.P) to have “set-aside” (ie not to grow on a proportion of their land).

The UK is now a really expensive place to do business- land/rent, fuel, staffing; it’s all really expensive. Farming in particular is caught between a rock and a hard place. On top of the generally high cost of doing business here, we have rather high legal minimum standards (things like environmental protection, H&S, animal welfare etc). On top of that, for your produce to end up being sold in a supermarket you must be Red Tractor assured- that adds standards above and beyond what’s legally required (eg your sprayer must be officially inspected annually, rather than every three years which is what the law requires).
But the rub is that foodstuffs are internationally traded commodities- supermarkets won’t pay above the international price for UK food even though imports will often have been produced to standards that would fall below our legal minimum.
Hitting higher standards naturally pushes up the costs to the business.

We live on a small, crowded island. Land has never been in such high demand so the price of land is high. Its value is now much higher for non-agricultural uses than it is for agriculture. ROCE in agriculture is currently -0.1% (you lose £1000 for every million you have invested), but that represents a big improvement on the previous figures…
Construction and BNG (biodiversity net gain) linked to construction, energy production (solar parks), carbon offsetting and wildlife projects all take land out of agricultural production, often in a way that will make it difficult to get back into agricultural production, should the need arise.

Agriculture is just another type of manufacturing. It is cheaper to produce stuff abroad (probably with the NATO guarantee of being able to import), and without support, domestic production is dying. The short term advantage is that it’s cheaper for consumers (cheap food, no subsidy to pay), but in the long term, farming won’t be there if it’s needed. Personally I’m planning my exit from this land which my family has farmed for 100yrs- I’m advising my kids not to think about going into farming.

I don’t think it’s about the amount of sunlight we get. Some places are really agriculturally productive in harsher environments, eg the Great Plains of Canada that are under snow for months of the year.

(Apologies again.)

I think a bigger issue in land pricing is rich people buying up agricultural land for tax purposes and not really using it (Clarksons plan until he found a way to monetise it in TV land). But whenever any government tries to do anything about that Farmers get grumpy.

Personally I think we should have a land tax and any land that could be used for economic activity that is being hoarded by rich folk for tax reasons should be taxed to the hilt.

We are not that small and we are not that crowded.

 

[Ted]

Bless. I have a map, made using Nukemap, saved on my iPad, of every single nuke target in the UK, that I sadly cannot upload to the forum anymore. Nowhere is safe. This island is so small, that even if you are far enough from a doom shroom to survive the blast, the fallout will get you within a day.

People often say "I'd run away to Wales or Scotland". Where do you think we keep our military bases and submarine pens? Those "rural" locations are prime targets! And let's not forget that in such a situation, all major roads will be closed.
Besides, how far do you really think you can get in 4 minutes?

Nope. No point even trying. Just lie back, light up a Hamlet, and get a spectacular suntan.

There's a film called Testament (which I'm sure you heard of) that shows how nuclear war can be devastating even without a small sleepy American town being blown up because of the (literal) fallout. It's an interesting take and angle on the subject, but crucially it's something that can only happen in a large and sparsely populated country like the states

In the UK, we actually have a lot of major towns and cities with a decent population that would make them prime targets and nowhere to run, and this is without the fallout! We are probably one of the worst countries in the world to live in when it comes to nuclear war because we are so densely populated, on an island, and a major powerhouse.

Besides, how far do you really think you can get in 4 minutes?

There's a great episode of Only Fools and Horses from 1981 that deals with the then tensions of the Cold War and the Trotters do a practice run of the 4 minute warning. They do it when no one is about and the roads are empty and still fail, but also if it happened during the actual 4 minute warning, they'd barely make it out of the flat at best because everyone else would be doing the same. At that point you'd just do something "fun" one last time on this Earth so at least you'd go out with a bang (both figuratively and literally)

 

[Slackjawedyokel]

I think a bigger issue in land pricing is rich people buying up agricultural land for tax purposes and not really using it (Clarksons plan until he found a way to monetise it in TV land). But whenever any government tries to do anything about that Farmers get grumpy.

Personally I think we should have a land tax and any land that could be used for economic activity that is being hoarded by rich folk for tax reasons should be taxed to the hilt.

We are not that small and we are not that crowded.

I count myself as a small farmer. I’ve only got my own patch of land, I’ve no employees so I work 7days a week. I’m in the middle between two large landowners (the Duke of Northumberland on one side and the family of the person that founded Persimmon Homes on the other. To be fair, I’m not aware of any large owner of farmland that doesn’t really use it- it’s all farmed (whether in-house or by tenants) and used to produce food. Interestingly both of the big landowning families next door are looking to sell chunks of their estates.

Re. land inheritance tax, that came in yesterday, but fortunately at a somewhat higher threshold than originally planned so it will still be possible for small farms to be passed down through generations. Farming has famously low returns, often negative, so it’s hard to see how a generation of farming can build sufficient capital to pay a large inheritance bill. I assume that the very rich have clever ways of putting assets into trusts and offshore instruments to avoid paying.

If nearly half of our food has to be produced elsewhere, that means we are fairly crowded and vulnerable to food insecurity.

 

[Secret Weapon]

I'm not sure if this is true, but Google AI says that England technically grows enough wheat to feed the entire human population of the country, but a large portion of it goes towards feeding farm animals instead; therefore, if everybody in England became vegans then it might relieve some of the pressure on imported food?

(I realise that this is unrealistic in the short-term, but it at least shows that it's hypothetically possible in an emergency)

 

[Dave]

I count myself as a small farmer. I’ve only got my own patch of land, I’ve no employees so I work 7days a week. I’m in the middle between two large landowners (the Duke of Northumberland on one side and the family of the person that founded Persimmon Homes on the other. To be fair, I’m not aware of any large owner of farmland that doesn’t really use it- it’s all farmed (whether in-house or by tenants) and used to produce food. Interestingly both of the big landowning families next door are looking to sell chunks of their estates.

Re. land inheritance tax, that came in yesterday, but fortunately at a somewhat higher threshold than originally planned so it will still be possible for small farms to be passed down through generations. Farming has famously low returns, often negative, so it’s hard to see how a generation of farming can build sufficient capital to pay a large inheritance bill. I assume that the very rich have clever ways of putting assets into trusts and offshore instruments to avoid paying.

If nearly half of our food has to be produced elsewhere, that means we are fairly crowded and vulnerable to food insecurity.

Latest figures show over 500,000 hectares of farmland was not cropped in 2025. Now some of that will be for good farming reason but a lot of it is due to farm acquisition by folk looking to avoid tax.

No-one wanted farmers to be taxed if they passed a genuine farm down to their family and the latest plan didn’t do that.

 

[rob666]

Round here, in the rich Ribble Valley, I see hundreds of farms that have adapted with tipi villages, shepherds huts, cabins, halloween attractions (Scare Kingdom), and even barns that become gin farms, dog sitting services, candlemaking and jewellery workshops.
Then there is the mafiosi involved snail farmer...for tax evasion.
I kid you not.

Back to the war.
Donald need his legs slapping.
Possible sixty limit on the motorways, will take me an extra five minutes to get to the Beach.
Conscription next.

 

[Slackjawedyokel]

Latest figures show over 500,000 hectares of farmland was not cropped in 2025. Now some of that will be for good farming reason but a lot of it is due to farm acquisition by folk looking to avoid tax.

No-one wanted farmers to be taxed if they passed a genuine farm down to their family and the latest plan didn’t do that.

Where are those figures from please?

I suspect they represent things like :
-farmland that has been acquired for other purposes (solar, construction, habitat restoration etc) that hadn’t yet commenced.
- farmland that’s in schemes such as SFI. Essentially the farmer is contracted to Govt for producing ‘public goods for public money’, such as planting wildflowers for pollinators or birds.
-Failed crops hence uncropped (2025 was a season…)

 

[Dave]

Where are those figures from please?

I suspect they represent things like :
-farmland that has been acquired for other purposes (solar, construction, habitat restoration etc) that hadn’t yet commenced.
- farmland that’s in schemes such as SFI. Essentially the farmer is contracted to Govt for producing ‘public goods for public money’, such as planting wildflowers for pollinators or birds.
-Failed crops hence uncropped (2025 was a season…)

The government https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ral-land-use-in-united-kingdom-at-1-june-2025

The farmland given over to other non farm purposes (solar) is a different stat as it stops being “arable” land. I assume SFI is in the stat.

 

[Slackjawedyokel]

The government https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ral-land-use-in-united-kingdom-at-1-june-2025

The farmland given over to other non farm purposes (solar) is a different stat as it stops being “arable” land. I assume SFI is in the stat.

Ah ok, thanks.
I think environmental schemes would count for a large part of that stat. On the one hand that’s good from an environmental and a GAEC point of view (it could rapidly get brought back into production) but widespread adoption of non-farming uses erodes our capacity to farm; everything from the number of people employed in the sector to the amount of machinery and dealerships that exist.
The guy that hosted the annual cereals event last year (the event that’s being held at Clarkson’s this year) has largely got out of the business now. All his gear was sold off yesterday-I suspect much of the larger gear will be exported.