"Dave Holford" wrote in message
...


Spiv wrote:

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
link.net...

"ANDREW ROBERT BREEN" wrote in message
...

Having looked at Russia (from flights out to Japan) the USA is small
and the UK very small..


Yes, as I said, it depends on one's point of view.

Depends on its ability to support people and feed them from the land.
The
UK can do that with no problems - 60 million of them.


With all the 'Land Army', 'Victory Gardens' etc. why were we so short of
food with just a fraction of that population during WWII?

Pre-WWI taxation policies discouraged much of the agricultural developments
being realized elsewhere in the world. During the two world wars, the amount
of land changed from pastoral usage to cultivation practically doubled by
WWII. Beginning in WWII, the government began encouraging the heavy usage of
fertilizers to increase crop yields. In the post-war food shortages, Britain
worked steadily to increase production with fertilization, larger farms,
improved animal husbandry, and ever larger crop yeilds from genetically
improved crop varieties and animal herds. This resulted in 75%
self-sufficiency by 1972 and near 100% self-sufficiency by the 1990s.
Unfortunately, the price for these increases in food production has resulted
in steadily decreasing soil feritlity, increasing soil contamination and
water pollution with ecologically destructive organo-phosphate salts from
the fertilizers, and the possible over-reliance in factory farms and disease
risk monoculture crops.


I used to think the U.K. was big when I thought a 100mile drive required
pre-planning. Then I came to North America and got on a train - three
days later I was still on the train and a long, long way from the far
side. Incidentally I'm expecting to drive about 120miles tomorrow to do
a little shopping; if I did that in the U.K. I'd probably fall off the
edge.

Dave