On September 25, the UK's vegetables and fruits were in a state of shortage, and the supermarket giants restricted consumers' purchases, such as cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant, etc., and each person could only buy two or three at a time. Not only that, Tom Bradshaw of the National Farmers' Federation (NFU) warned local consumers that the current vegetable shortage may only be the "tip of the iceberg" because "the UK is at a tipping point".
Recently, a ridiculous incident happened in the UK.
A buyer bought 100 cucumbers at one time at Lidl, the cheapest food in the UK.
She was banned by supermarkets for this near-hoarding and blamed by other angry offline consumers.
For no other reason, vegetables and fruits are now scarce and expensive.
Several supermarket giants in the UK have imposed restrictions on the amount of fruit and vegetables people can buy.
Asda indicates a limit of three pieces per pack on packages of tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, mixed vegetable salads, broccoli, cauliflower, and raspberries.
Tesco and Aldi, too, have a limit of three for customers who want to buy some peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.
Morrison, meanwhile, has been stricter about customers, with tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and peppers all limited to two items.
If someone dares to fill their two or three shopping carts into baskets, there will be staff members who will come over and sternly reprimand:
Please stop, if you need a very large quantity of goods, please make an appointment by phone in advance.
Know that supermarkets are not just for your home.
People who don't know think it's a huge deposit at the bank.
The reason why supermarkets are so strict is because the NFU warns that more fruits and vegetables may be affected in the future, fewer items will be available at higher prices, and even out of stock.
According to the analysis of the people themselves, there are many reasons for this situation.
The first is Brexit.
After Brexit, British agriculture has faced shortages of migrant workers and government subsidies from within the EU, and has become more dependent on imported food than before Brexit.
The dependence on imports has made Britain more vulnerable to "climate disasters" than ever before, after all, agriculture has been called "relying on the sky for food" since ancient times, except for Israel, which is dedicated to studying soilless cultivation because of the lack of land available, otherwise how much food humans have to eat depends on the face of nature.
In an interview with TV reporters, the NFU's Bradshaw said the UK was at a "tipping point" and needed to "control the food produced in its own country".
He said that for the past year, the agricultural alliance has been warning about preparing for this moment.
Growers lack confidence and do not feel that there is a reasonable return for using greenhouses to grow vegetables and fruits.
Many greenhouses are now empty when they should have been filled with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.
Because farmers can't afford to risk farming and tending to their fields, because these vegetable crops don't seem to them to be rewarded by the market.
Not everyone is a master of vegetable cultivation, Charles III, who can grow vegetables and fruits in a large area of land and make a lot of money.
Therefore, home-cooked dishes such as tomatoes and cucumbers are completely dependent on imports, and before Brexit there were some needs to be imported, and now they are completely dependent on imports.
So when the second reason – climate disasters – emerges, everyone has to buy less.
North Africa and southern Spain had bad weather, much colder than ever.
During this season, most of the vegetables in the UK market come from these two regions.
But Morocco flooded, frost hit it, Spain didn't run, and the weather was bad.
Weather and transportation are in trouble, and there are fewer tomatoes to supply other countries, but also fewer other vegetables and fruits.
What's interesting here is that the UK never bought anything in Morocco before Brexit, but since Brexit, in order to buy the right vegetables and fruits, you have had to go further than the original sourcing areas in the EU countries.
And then this year there was the Ukrainian problem.
The war sent energy prices soaring and inflation.
You know, farming is to use energy, which is a "transaction" that first costs money and then exchanges money.
Therefore, please the British masses read Zhang Yanghao's "Hillside Sheep Tong Care Gu".
Think about the way forward and which direction to go.