I first developed an interest in food security during the Covid pandemic. Living in a group of storm-lashed islands off the north-east coast of Scotland, I already knew that fruit and vegetables don’t always turn up on the shelves of Tesco whenever you want them. However, you knew they would get there when the wind dropped. During the pandemic, empty shelves in the supermarket didn’t happen only when winter gales stopped the container lorries crossing the Pentland Firth. Life without lettuce suddenly became a real possibility.

During lockdown I was shut up alone in my house for long periods and there wasn’t much I could do to pass the time except gardening, starting a blog and surfing the Internet. I’ve always done a bit of gardening, ever since I took over the family vegetable patch when my father got too old. I started to think more seriously about growing some of my own food.

I started to follow the Singapore National Parks board website during lockdown, mainly because I visited my son in 2017 when he was on a two years’ postdoc there. Also it had pretty pictures of the world I could no longer visit. Singapore is a city-state with an area of 719 square km, slightly smaller than Orkney which has an area of 990 square km. However, Singapore has a population density of 8,592 people per square km, while Orkney's population density is 22 people per square km. The Singapore government is making a great effort to grow as much of their own food as possible. Areas between the high-rise blocks of flats where most of the population live have been turned into communal gardens, gardens have been established on rooftops, people can apply for an allotment, and during lockdown everyone was entitled to a free flowerpot and a packet of seeds so that they could grow herbs and salad on balconies. There is excellent free gardening advice on their website.  All these measures apparently have the added benefit of bringing people together, combating social isolation and distrust between the different ethnic groups, and giving the elderly something useful to do, since many of the jobs involved can be done by the less able-bodied.

I also thought about the ‘Dig for Victory’ program in Britain during the Second World War. During WWII, Britain made a massive, sustained effort to grow more of its own food, to waste as little of it as possible, and to distribute it as fairly as possible by rationing. Winning the war required that not only servicemen but also civilians remained healthy. Both sides in the conflict attempted to starve the other into surrender by blockading merchant ships carrying food from outside Europe. The population of the UK was already too high to feed without importing a lot of food, but the aim was to produce as much as possible at home. Fortunately the measures taken worked, and although people were often hungry, Britain never experienced mass starvation as parts of Europe did.

At the start of WWII, the UK had a population of nearly 50 million people (“Wartime Farm” p16) and imported 70% of its food (“Wartime Farm” p.14), much of it from the British Empire or Commonwealth. Farming had been neglected during the inter-war years because the government priority was the financial sector, manufacturing and free trade (“Wartime Farm” p.16-17). Britain imported over 5 million tons of unground wheat plus 400,000 tons of flour and meal before the war (“Fighting Fit” p.180) i.e. 88% of our wheat and flour (“Wartime Farm” p.18). 50% of meat was produced in the UK but a large amount of feedstuffs were imported; all the milk and 94% of our potatoes were produced here, but only 9% of our butter and 16% of our sugar, oils and fats were home-produced (“Wartime Farm” p.18).

The authorities therefore adopted policies to maximise food production at home, and to prioritise certain food imports. They also made careful scientific analyses of how to maximise the benefits of the foods being imported. It was found more efficient for imports to contain more calorie-dense foods such as meat, eggs, etc as these took up less space in transit. (Fighting Fit p.203).  Farmers were directed to turn over as much land as possible to arable farming, and to concentrate on providing the maximum number of calories as efficiently as possible by growing grain and potatoes rather than animal feedstuffs. One acre of land could grow enough wheat to feed 21 people, but only enough meat for one person (Fighting Fit p.204). Not only were pastures ploughed up, but any available odd bits of land e.g. Windsor Great Park. They managed to increase the acreage of arable land from 12 million in 1939 to 18 million in 1944 (“Wartime Farm p.28). They could not, however, produce anywhere near the amount of grain required for the nation’s staple, bread.

The government introduced legislation to force bakers and millers to produce brown bread rather than white, made of high-extraction flour, i.e. flour where the wheat germ and bran were not extracted. This was not only more nutritious but you could get significantly more loaves of bread from the same amount of grain. It was a very unpopular measure, both with the public for reasons of taste and with the bakers and millers for reasons of profit, but it was enforced. The flour was fortified with extra vitamins and minerals to improve its nutritional value even further.

Market gardens grew vegetables instead of flowers.  Since feedstuffs for cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens were largely imported, meat and egg production took a major hit, but milk was still considered important. Hay and silage for dairy cattle came from any available land, such as roadside verges, railway embankments and churchyards.

The general public could not realistically grow enough of the staple foods which provided calories, but they were encouraged to grow their own vegetables – “Dig for Victory” – and given instructions on how to do so. They were also taught how to control pests, how to save seed for next year, and how to preserve what they had grown. If you are growing vegetables seriously, this is just as important as knowing when to stick which seeds into the ground. One problem during wartime was that sugar was rationed, so that it was less easy to preserve fruit as jam. Pre-war most sugar came from imported sugar-cane, but now over 95% came from home-grown sugar beet. Various ways around this were suggested, such as jam recipes including salt or saccharine. People were encouraged to keep bees to offset the sugar shortage. People were also told how to dry vegetables such as apples, or store them carefully.

Children were encouraged to forage for wild fruits and nuts.  Although they didn’t usually collect enough to make a whole meal, they could make a significant contribution to meals based on other ingredients. Children also collected rosehips, which were made into syrup to provide vitamin C for children since citrus fruits were largely unavailable.

Farms in those days relied less on machinery, so there was a shortage of labour for growing food when most of the able-bodied males were serving in the armed forces. As well as supplying as many tractors and combine harvesters as possible, the government recruited women as “Land Girls”. At that point, women in Britain were not expected to do this sort of work, although in other times and places it was perfectly normal for women to work in the fields.

Rationing of staple foods such as meat and fish was introduced. People were expected to fill up, i.e. get most of their calories, from brown bread and potatoes. They were encouraged to eat potatoes rather than bread, as these did not have to be imported, although potatoes were not a totally reliable crop. Nevertheless, the diet of the poor (70% of the population) was enormously improved during the war, and the massive health divide between rich and poor was much reduced. Temporarily – after the war Britain returned to the state where poverty was linked to poor diet (Fighting Fit p.210-211). As indeed we have seen recently.

Today Britain has a population of just over 69 million and we import a large percentage of our food. Food produced in Britain includes most of our cereals, meat, dairy products and eggs. Less of our fruit and vegetables (17% and 55% respectively) are produced in Britain, due to climate, seasonality, and the preferences of both consumers and producers. Tomatoes are one of the most popular vegetables in Britain, but most are imported, especially during the winter.  The UK also imports vast quantities of lettuce. However, even domestic food production and distribution is reliant on imported products such as fertiliser and packaging, so it is not immune to supply chain problems.  And farmers have recently been complaining about a shortage of labour at harvest time.  Weather, pandemic disease, political changes and war have all recently meant that we can't rely on having all the imported fruit and vegetables we have become accustomed to. Maybe it's time to think ahead about how we cam become more self-sufficient?

“Fighting Fit: the Wartime Battle for Britain’s Health”  Laura Dawes 2016

“Wartime Farm” Peter Ginn, Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands 2012