Britain currently grows some 53% of the food its eats and imports around £11bn fruit and vegetables a year. This may surprise many today but more surprising is the fact that in 1939 only around 30% of the food was grown here and the vast majority came from the likes of, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, US and Argentina. This reliance on foreign food was one of the main drivers for the successful ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign during the Second World War and the introduction of rationing both to rebalance the reliance on imports and combat the queues for food.
In 1942 some 50% of the civilian population was actively
engaged in Britain’s ‘Garden Front.’ By 1943 there were some 1.4 million
allotment sites throughout Britain. Vegetables were grown on any piece of land
and occupied the moat in the Tower of London, Kensington Gardens and the lawn
in front of the Royal Crescent in Bath. Not something you would expect to see
today.
Today we face different challenges as supermarkets have
reduced shelf life and stock holdings. Some 30 years ago they held 12 days
stock, today its 24 to 36 hours stock. Today global sourcing and transport has
all but removed seasonality and we have a generation that expect everything fresh
all year round, strawberries at Christmas, salads in the middle of winter and
who wants tinned pineapple when you can get a ripe whole one cheaper off the
shelf?
To ‘Dig for Victory’ against today’s virus may be laudable
but not practicable as it takes weeks to grow and all produce is impacted by
the seasonal weather. We all hope that the migrant pickers that much of the
farming industry worldwide relies heavily on are in the right place at the right
time.
As for allotments they have shrunk in number over the years
but in this climate always enjoy a resurgence of interest. More people are recognising
that they offer much more than just fresh healthy food and when land is
increasingly being grabbed by the developers to build sky scraper homes in the
sky they are part of the future social, environmental, educational, community
health and well-being. They can literally tick all the boxes. But we all need
to find new ways to provide land for growing as allotments themselves are not
the answer but part of the answer. Town planners, developers, and legislators
need to think again as this Corona virus has opened a door which needs to be
opened wider.
