1. Reading some of the comments beneath this week's column, I'm struck once again by how fiercely resistant many people are to understanding how our food is produced, how it reaches us and how the system works. This willed ignorance is lethal. Short🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... - ThreadSky

georgemonbiot.bsky.social • 5 days ago

1. Reading some of the comments beneath this week's column, I'm struck once again by how fiercely resistant many people are to understanding how our food is produced, how it reaches us and how the system works. This willed ignorance is lethal. Short🧵
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/16/britain-food-supply-donald-trump-stockpile

Comments

mbensonster.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sounds to me like someone's pushed a bug up your ass about meat. The problem is the systems of mass production and distribution, of all products, not any specific product. England, birthplace of the capitalist monster, lost the healthy link between populace and food production first.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sounds to me like you haven't taken the time to read the evidence.

mbensonster.bsky.social•5 days ago

What explanation can you give for the indubitable fact that food production was completely sustainable for all of human history until capitalism destroyed the rural / urban balance?

thesecretfarmer.bsky.social•5 days ago

My question to both of you is how often in a full week (7 days) do you cook a meal from scratch using British vegetables? Either fresh, frozen or tinned.

mbensonster.bsky.social•5 days ago

I cook from scratch with local (not British, obviously) 100% ingredients every day. I don't buy frozen or canned goods. And I've never eaten fast food or junk food. I am extremely lucky.

thesecretfarmer.bsky.social•5 days ago

Sorry just seen you aren't in UK! That's good though. I have this theory people just don't know how to cook anymore! Which then leads to more processed food & unhealthier lifestyles. Although a lot of frozen veg is actually very good now

swaledalemutton.bsky.social•5 days ago

He can't, because he doesn't understand any of it.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

By sustainable, I take it you mean repeated episodes of mass starvation?

mbensonster.bsky.social•5 days ago

Are you referring to the so-called potato famine? The direct result of the appropriation of land by capitalists. Your thinking is simplistic. Once again, the problem is the systems of mass production and distribution. In 1900, 90% of world population was rural. Now 90% is urban.

konallis.bsky.social•5 days ago

Poor harvests and bread riots were fairly regular features of early modern British history. Yields didn't have enough margin to absorb shocks from recurring bad weather.

sluntz.bsky.social•5 days ago

The tale of Joseph in Egypt may not be literally true, but it reflects the fact that in the ancient world a few bad seasons caused people to starve. Someone who could see it coming and persaude the ruler to stockpile would be venerated indeed, because it so rarely happened.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

Wait. You believe that was the only mass starvation event? Like I said, you need to do some reading. https://ourworldindata.org/famines#long-term-trends-in-global-famine-mortality

mbensonster.bsky.social•5 days ago

Excuse me, I was a rancher in New Mexico for 30 years, produced all my own food. Now I live in a little town in the Pyrenees that still produces 90% of its own food. Seems like you don't want to look at the real imbalance which is the result of the confiscation of land by capitalists.

swaledalemutton.bsky.social•5 days ago

He doesn't.

Basically he posts this drivel to rage bait clicks to his crappy and ignorant columns to drive his own income

ettervekst.bsky.social•4 days ago

Most people don't understand how many calories of energy it takes to get one calorie of food out. Because of fossil energy we're wasting so much.

If more people would turn their monoculture lawn into a small regenerative vegetable garden it would save a whole lot of nature, energy and animals.

alistairblantyre.bsky.social•5 days ago

🥴

grahanimal.bsky.social•5 days ago

The saddest thing, beside the fact that in a country as wealthy as the UK food banks should not be necessary, is that the poor will once again suffer first. They will be the ones who can't afford, financially, security or space wise, to hoard and those charity services won't be able to function.

lovely-sport.bsky.social•5 days ago

I struggle with the idea that a mixed farm with cows and sheep grazing and providing fertiliser for plant crops is unsustainable: it can also add value like wildflower meadows/ ground nesting. Surely ‘opportunity cost’ is better targeted on dead land like grouse moors/ high input dead-soil arable?

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

Do please, if you get the chance, read this. I spent years grappling with these issues. https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/317018/regenesis-by-monbiot-george/9780141992990

lovely-sport.bsky.social•5 days ago

Just snagged a signed 1st edition for 7 quid 😉
Will report back.

rwclimate.bsky.social•5 days ago

📌

agendaforreform.bsky.social•5 days ago

“High yield, low impact” is that possible?

merylbatchelder.bsky.social•5 days ago

When the shelves next to the checkout of the supermarkets are stocked with products such as plastic bottles labelled "This is Food" it's no wonder people are disconnected from reality 🙄

donnamartina.bsky.social•5 days ago

Never eat anything your grandparents would not have recognized as food.
(Michael Pollan)

lostinalostworld.bsky.social•5 days ago

The source of bacon.
There are around 8 of these horrors operating in the UK, and 90% of pigs end up in one.

https://youtu.be/eVebmHMZ4bQ?si=iWwZD0QGZfLQo7H-

oldlibrarian.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'm sure you have researched how to protect your stockpile against moths, weevils, mice & humidity.
It's just mother-hen-me mentioning the necessity to do so. In case some followers want to do the same.

sofiot28.bsky.social•5 days ago

Food security is not something our government is prioritising, they are more worried how they can make disabled people get back into work. I have a small pantry that I put all essentials that I keep as an emergency food. Things look grim, but let's hope it doesn't get super bad.

jaybee27.bsky.social•5 days ago

With life expectancy ever increasing the only method of limiting population growth is enforcing birth control globally. Without any natural predators and with wars and pandemics unable to make more than a dent on population there is no other method.

comptonscatter.bsky.social•5 days ago

People are already having fewer children. No need to enforce anything.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-has-passed-peak-child

jaybee27.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's ironic how governments and politicians are happy to interfere in many aspects of human lives but no one is willing to address the single biggest cause of food insecurity and carbon emissions: viz global overpopulation. To contextualise: Human population has gone from 1bn in 1800 to 8bn in 2025.

comptonscatter.bsky.social•5 days ago

we've already passed Peak Child, so just hang on til 2050 :)

mixitupdeedee62.bsky.social•5 days ago

It is, indeed, wilful ignorance.

markindevon.bsky.social•5 days ago

Denial is my biggest worry. People don't like to confront difficult realities like climate change.

The logical conclusion of this is a rise in populist govts.

This is because populist politicians tell us lies about how everything will be ok, sacrifices aren't needed - immigrants are the problem.

coetirgwyn.bsky.social•5 days ago

We've had a plan for years. Stockpiled non-perishable food, bought 18 acres, planted 8000 trees, grow our own food and fuel. But like most plans it will fail on the 1st contact with reality, the ravening hoards will take everything right after the shit hits the fan. At least we tried.

rabb1967.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think history suggests that people will queue expectantly for the places they usually find food and then they will start rioting and looting and then killing others for food. Millions will die. Gangs will emerge and begin controlling what meagre supply there is and we’ll be back to square one.

npostorino.bsky.social•5 days ago

I remember in the lead up to Brexit whenever food supply was bright up lots of people would say "we'll just have gardens like during the war. We can produce all our food in Britain". Uhhh

pesch909.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yes, so what were all those U boats doing in the Atlantic...?

patofminch.bsky.social•5 days ago

indeed - I seem to remember that even with a willing and hungry war time populace, 50% was the highest level ever achieved and there was no realistic way to get it higher...
and now the population is 25% larger.

bubbletheviking.bsky.social•5 days ago

and gardens are smaller....

bubbletheviking.bsky.social•5 days ago

The politicians even more so. I feel the comfort they gain from their privileged positions makes them blind to the reality that this will affect us all (though always the poor most). That is why they fail to prepare their countries for the inevitable.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

2. Many people subscribe to a tourist-brochure vision of where their food comes from. The huge food conglomerates play to this, with their ads and labels conjuring bucolic simplicity. How do you imagine your free-range eggs are produced? Like this or like this?

rowemeister83.bsky.social•5 days ago

The second photo is quite shocking. As you say, it’s hard to tally that reality with the happy, smiley packaging and adverts for your tasty breakfast morsel.

heptaglemious.bsky.social•5 days ago

It's also from PETA, so treat it with about 2lb of salt. Though George's point stands. If you want to know just how little money a farmer makes from many millions' worth of land and equipment, watch "Harry's Farm" videos by @harrym.com - he shows you the receipts.

helenh.bsky.social•5 days ago

Having rehomed many ex-layer chickens I can confirm this is what they look like when they are disposed of at 14 months old, at which point the rate of laying slows so they are no longer commercially useful. Most don't get rescued...

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

3. The second image is from a real free-range egg farm, and is much closer to average free-range conditions than the first one. https://www.peta.org.uk/features/this-is-free-range/

rebeccasjc.bsky.social•5 days ago

Most people disregard anything coming from PETA, even when the evidence is right in front of them.
Just sad, how regressive most on the left are when it comes to their understanding of the food system.

oxtale.bsky.social•5 days ago

Because a lot of what Peta says is made up or grossly distorted.

rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social•5 days ago

Ok, I am genuinely shocked by that PETA footage. Does 'Free Range' not have an actual regulated meaning in the UK? I looked up Waitrose, out of interest, as I get my eggs there and this is what I thought free range meant. How can both systems be called Free Range? https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/content/sustainability/animal-welfare/hens

jessicajsalmon.bsky.social•3 days ago

We had our own chickens for a while - now I buy Cacklebean eggs from the farm a couple of miles up the road - where they are actually kept like this. £2.95 (Co-op) for 6 and worth every penny. If you can afford it look for local suppliers who do the right thing and support them.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•3 days ago

Not that simple, unfortunately. Much better welfare for chickens, but FAR greater environmental impacts, in terms of land use, feed requirement and the consumption of just about anything that moves on that land. If your eggs are delicious, it's because half the ecosystem has gone into them.

jessicajsalmon.bsky.social•3 days ago

My argument is if you’re going to eat/ buy eggs then buy good ones. If there’s a discussion around eggs/ meat farming at all, that’s a different topic but land local to me is limestone with a very thin topsoil eminently unsuited to growing most crops. I suppose we could just build over it instead.

jessicajsalmon.bsky.social•3 days ago

For context I grew up on a farm (owned by someone else) that grew crops where illegal chemicals were used, which potentially at least contributed to a whole range of family health issues including my mother’s Alzheimer’s. There are very few perfect solutions where environment meets humans.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•3 days ago

There is a third option: don't eat animal products and bring back wild ecosystems, in which the UK is extremely deficient, largely due to livestock farming (85% of the agricultural area).

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

4. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that most people don’t want to know. But the disastrous result is that we are torn between two terrible poles. One is the system as it stands, environmentally destructive, highly concentrated, cruel, prone to systemic collapse.

williameconomist.bsky.social•5 days ago

We are covering food security/sovereignty at the festival of economics next Saturday. Its a really important topic which more people need to understand. It can't be left to the market. Neither can ownership and use of land.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

5. The other is the system imagine and some people try to recreate: autochthonous, with low yields, highly vulnerable to local harvest failure, with no means of feeding people in cities or in regions with insufficient fertile land or water: https://www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/the-cruel-fantasies-of-well-fed-people/

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

6. To make matters worse, much bucolic fantasy centres around livestock, with highly misleading films such as Kiss the Ground, Six Inches of Soil, Rachel’s Farm etc. They create an entirely false impression of harmony between ruminant farming and sustainability. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/15/beef-farm-eco-friendly-film-documentary-livestock

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

7. In reality, beef and lamb are by far the most damaging of all farm products, kilo for kilo. And the more outdoor, free-range, grass-fed, bucolic-seeming they are, the worse the outcomes, in terms of both land use and greenhouse gases: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0295035

stevebasnett.bsky.social•5 days ago

Just to sprinkle a bit of light-heartedness on what is a serious and important thread, I just had to look up the word autocthonous. Never encountered it before. Thank you, Mr Monbiot, for educating me in so many different ways.

naturalmessiah.bsky.social•5 days ago

Arable farming pushes the killing to where it can't be seen.

A mono-cropped field is EVERY inch an industrial landscape, shaped by poisons that kill indiscriminately, nutrients that run off leading to suffocating eutrophication, and machinery that crushes & tears wildlife.

georgemonbiot.bsky.social•5 days ago

Good luck surviving without it.

naturalmessiah.bsky.social•5 days ago

Apologies if my post sounded overly resistant to your thoughts. That is not my intention.

The idea that 'plants good, meat bad' is too simplistic. There has to be some middle ground.

Have you read Simon Fairlie's "Meat: A Benign Extravagance"? It tries to reconcile these polar opposites.

alicepugh.bsky.social•5 days ago

Its a sensible idea but these supplies will be out of date at some stage, you'd need to keep replacing them. Also how secure can you make them? I encourage people to eat less especially meat. Lots of farmers are going organic already so no need for imported fertiliser.

petergarbutt.bsky.social•5 days ago

Once again, hypercapitalism has the ear of government on this.
Money talks.
This, along with climate change and biodiversity loss, wars, widening inequalities between people and between countries, is down to an economic system where parties, policies and politicians become commodities.

megabeth18.bsky.social•5 days ago

Every lb of meat takes over 2000 gallons of water to produce.

The grain it takes to feed one cow could feed hundreds in grains..

ibscholar.bsky.social•5 days ago

I have been puzzled for years about how little food security is discussed in the UK. This was particularly salient during the whole Brexit debate. This is a failure of government that could have very serious consequences when most of the food we eat in the UK is imported.

monawys.bsky.social•5 days ago

‘Since then, the warnings have only intensified. Some governments have heeded them. China, Japan, Switzerland and Norway invest in stockpiles of grain.’ The 🇨🇭 civil service sent us a leaflet last year telling us what/how to stockpile, clarified they should/cannot not be expected to rescue.

ellyraying.bsky.social•5 days ago

Pre COVID we did this, 25kg rice, oats, lentils along with dried onions, fruits nuts and tinned toms. And spare bedsheets to be made into reusable toilet paper!

mmay.bsky.social•4 days ago

I had a bit of a "hard brexit" food store...at one time...

martinpjohnsonbass.bsky.social•4 days ago

I wouldn’t pay any mind to comments under guardian articles these days. The quality of the commentary has fallen off a cliff in the last year or so.

nisscroft.bsky.social•5 days ago

Also,how people think they can be self sufficient,in their gardens and allotments.I lived on 19 acres,you have to work non stop. Maybe a column on calories you could produce,and nutrients you would lack.During war,food is rationed,growing stuff was an extra bonus.

cerimu.bsky.social•5 days ago

I work on a community centre allotment. I just realised how depressingly few people we could provide with very few crops. We need a sensible resilient system of food growing but we're unlikely to see it from this government. We need more Greens in power.

comptonscatter.bsky.social•5 days ago

our shit always died or got eaten by bugs (at least we *have* bugs) and now we can't eat what we grow because our dirt, due to yearly air/rain deposits, are too full of PFAS from our local friendly chemical plant.

highlandscouse.bsky.social•5 days ago

Since COVID we've done the same. Always have probably six months of beans, pulses, flour, essentials, even brewing supplies; plus could supply most of our own energy needs for cooking & hot water. "Prepping" has negative connotations, but I'd rather be prepared than the alternative.

heidi-lemoulin.bsky.social•5 days ago

Great minds.....

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