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| Britain is not self sufficient in food, it is estimated to be about 62% self sufficient, so whichever way you want to spin it, we're going to have to import our food deficit at a higher price than before, or go back to a more basic diet. #Winning | |
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It depends how those 62% are defined.
A lot of British-produced food is actually meat. Even much of the crop acreage you see is actually used for the manufacture of animal feed. It's an important part of British agriculture.
If you grow more green stuff for humans instead, you actually have a higher yield per acreage and can feed more people with the same land. Not one-on-one of course as places like the high moors are not really suitable for anything besides sheep. But in many cases the shift would be possible.
On the other hand you can argue that meat is actually the higher value food and you can make more money off it. So it's better for the economy.
So maybe we could be self sufficient if we really had to be but we don't want to be as we make more money with meat?