40 years of cheap food based on oil, agribusiness and supermarkets have fed our families well. In spite of this, there’s a sense of crisis, as food inflation suddenly begins to cause concern. Already, parts of Africa can no longer feed itself, as emerging economies in Asia outstrip supply. In the UK, we also rely heavily on imported food. We forget the importance of oil as a basis of fertilising, packaging and food miles. The most pessimistic in Britain wonder whether the same could happen here as elsewhere in the world.And if it does, where does that leave Rhuthun? With large cities relying on at least 80 per cent imported food, if the oil pipes are turned off, will remote small towns such as Rhuthun be at the end of a very long queue? A scaremongering story in the Daily Mail last week stated that we’d be only three days from anarchy.
Yet, the Vale of Clwyd is renowned for its fertile arable land. But look around either Tesco or Co-op and you’d be hard-pressed to identify local products. Butter from the Llandyrnog creamery, perhaps. ‘Local Choice’ milk in Tesco from North Wales, though from exactly where, we don’t know. Tesco tells us that Welsh meats tend to feature but, again, from where? In a crisis, would our local sheep farmers be attracted by higher prices from our cities, be they Cardiff or Chester or wherever?
Tesco has always and somewhat perversely assumed that if it’s Welsh it’s local. Tesco appears to treat the whole of Wales as some sort of ‘region’ when, in fact, North Wales is a region of its own.
Not that local greengrocers or fruitiers would necessarily be able to source locally having to buy, instead, from markets in Liverpool. But at least such outlets would be a second source of food. They’ve long gone, of course, and even Somerfield no longer supplies Rhuthun.
As food inflation rockets, we’re in the hands of Tesco and the Co-op.