Matthew Sinclair chastises me for something I did not say:
While I'm on the subject of environmentalists misunderstanding agricultural economics, Peter Franklin is completely wrong on food security which is largely a non-issue for Britain. We produce a pretty large share of our own food at the moment compared to the norm since the abolition of the Corn Laws.
Yes, Britain does produce a large share of its own food, and in my post I agreed with David Cameron and Tim Yeo that we must keep it that way.
Matthew then implies that I think mass starvation is on the cards, when in fact all I argued was that we can't rely on cheap food imports:
In the First and Second World Wars, for all the "Dig for Britain" rhetoric we had little difficulty feeding our population - in fact, diet is thought to have improved. Unless Peter really thinks there is going to be a greater challenge to our food supply than the U-Boats and economic demands of WW2 then there's little reason to worry about it. Britain can feed itself easily enough if it really needs to.
As a crunchy con, I'm delighted to see Matthew endorse the home-grown, comparatively organic and relatively vegetarian diet of the war years, but I'd take issue with the idea that we had "little difficulty" feeding ourselves. Rationing represents more than a little difficulty, as does the disappearance of many kinds of food from the shops, as does the raising of an army of land girls!
The point is that food insecurity is a continuum – and that maintaining a substantial farming sector is the best way of ensuring that we don't experience very much of it.