Britain's farmers have today pointed to the worrying over dependence on imported food to the UK. This is all very well but rather misses the point. The reason why the country is now importing far higher volumes of food from abroad is very simple. We have a population which is simply too big for the size of country we have. This is therefore not an argument of race. This is an argument of logistics. As the population grows in size and its demand for food does likewise, their demand also extends to housing.
New housing has two potential sources. The first and most senseless is the demolition of existing housing to build new houses in its place. Logic alone tells us that the new housing will on average house the same number of people as before. The next source is to build houses where none previously existed. The latter is a worrying trend which has two effects. It reduces still further the amount of land from which we can hope to grow produce or rear livestock. It also increases the human burden on the limited home grown foods currently available.
The misgivings of the farmers are thus in vain. Until we start to recognise that the UK is in fact only a small country, we will not come to appreciate that it can only support a finite number of people. Of course, over population is a global issue but we should at least seek to be approaching it with a little more common sense in our own back yard.
Two loaves and five fish were all well and good in the hands of Jesus but we mere mortals can't very well emulate such miracles.
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