Why Our Access to Food Is Under Threat and What We Can Do About It
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
The UK government has just published its white paper on biodiversity, ecosystem loss and national security. Quite a long title, but what does it mean? And how does it affect us living in Cheadle?
This is the first time an issue related to climate change has been cited as affecting national security. The big issue directly affecting the UK is related to possible food shortages for supermarkets that rely on a nationwide road distribution service to deliver to our shops, whereas locally produced food could be made more readily available to local people.
The paper talks about food shortages within five years. This could be due to unstable weather conditions in Europe*, causing harvests to rot in the ground. The paper cites a case of a lost coffee crop in South America, so you get the idea. We are already seeing food cost increases in our weekly shop, easily exceeding £140 a week - significantly higher than many other parts of Europe.
To understand the fragility that brings these changes, let’s go back a few years to the start of the Arab Spring, which began with the death of a vegetable seller in Tunisia. Russia traditionally sells its wheat and grain to Africa and the Middle East, while Britain gets its food stocks mainly from Europe. It took just one failed harvest in Russia to start a revolution in the Middle East that has led to warfare and people asking for political change. This has affected us in the UK by increasing the number of people crossing the Channel by boat looking for work here. Their origin is the Middle East.
This is showing up here as political unrest, with growing backing for the far right and, more recently, the election of Hannah Spencer to the Gorton and Denton constituency with 40.7% of the vote and a majority of 4,402, making her the Green Party's fifth MP and the first in the North of England.
A change not witnessed in more than 70 years, with Labour and the Conservatives traditionally forming the usual political framework.
What Can Be Done?
We have a relatively small town of 16,500 people with large areas of farmland and our own nature reserve, so we are in a position to make the changes needed to survive, and the good news is it has already started.
Within our town, we have a food bank at the Guild Hall and a social supermarket on the high street next to Savers hardware store. Both will be very useful if we see empty shelves at the traditional supermarkets.
Our butcher, Wooliscrofts, and veg shop, Fresh Produce, both buy food locally and are not part of the supermarket food system. We also have our own dairy, Wheat Brothers, so quite simply, buying locally will help develop our local food economy.
We can start to transform our town into a transition town, where food grown locally is consumed locally. This idea is working well in Cornwall, Devon, and some parts of Wales, providing fresher food without expensive transport costs, more local employment, and keeping high streets and markets open.
We can encourage councillors at district and town levels to ensure that developers build only the type of housing we need, where and when we need it, and not allow the town to develop without the infrastructure being put in place first. This will enable farmland to be farmed for food and keep our population at a manageable level for the ability of the land to support the numbers.
We can also start to grow our own food at home, Cheadle has excellent soil and now is a great time to get growning. Home grown always tastes better and saves money too so even without the threat of food shortages growning our own makes good sense. We could convert verges into veg gardens and our neglected community orchards could be a place of abundance.
We are told by the district council that our market square will get its development after the May Growth and Economy meeting. There has been a market charter for Cheadle for over a 1000's years and a market square would provide the space for local producers to provide for our town, not just food but other many other items too.
It is worth discussing this white paper with our local councillors to see what can be done to store and distribute food as necessary.
*February rainfall is 9% greater than average, according to the UK Met Office.
Read the Biodiversity, ecosystem loss and national security report here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0eae719d837d69afc7de/National_security_assessment_-_global_biodiversity_loss__ecosystem_collapse_and_national_security.pdf It is an abridged version found online from the government website. The full version is not available to the public yet but some groups are calling for the information to be released.
Cognews would very much like to hear your views on the abridged version of the report. It is only four to five pages, so it can be read over breakfast. Please contact us with your views, current actions and ideas too.
Why Our Access to Food Is Under Threat and What We Can Do About It - created 1st March 2026
