Will’s World: Storm’s brewing and the steaks are getting higher

I read a very unsettling article recently, detailing just how much the price of our weekly groceries has gone up over the past few years.

As a family of six, we’re certainly feeling the pinch at the supermarket checkout.

Remember before the Brexit referendum when Nigel Farage smirkingly promised voters that food would be cheaper when we left the EU? You can tell when that charlatan is lying – his lips move.

See also: How positive change on beef farm grew from tragedy

Beef Wellington

Getting back to the point, what concerned me most was that those quintessential British staples, beef and tea, were hit the hardest as wholesale prices for both categories were driven sharply upwards by tightening global supplies.

The two things that modern Britain was built on becoming unaffordable for many? Revolutions have surely started over less.

Where would Wellington’s army have been in the Peninsula War without beef?

As anyone who grew up reading Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels knows, they ate so much of it that the French nicknamed them “les rosbifs”, and it fuelled them on to ultimate victory over Napoleon on the plains of Waterloo.

Battles aren’t won with salad, as the Iron Duke himself almost certainly said.

During the Great War it was copious cans of bully beef and a regular supply of hot tea that kept them going through all those years of hell in the trenches.

And who can forget the images of smiling Tommies in the Second World War, eagerly brewing up outside their tanks in the deserts of North Africa.

Or the aircrew and ground staff doing the same on the airfields of Kent and Lincolnshire during the Battle of Britain.

The very epitome of “keep calm and carry on”.

Tea time

But why are you banging on about this, you might be asking. As a beef producer, shouldn’t you be happy with the current record high prices you’re getting? Well, yes and no.

First, we’ll put tea aside. I don’t feel remotely qualified to talk about that, but we do drink a lot of it in this house, so it’s a concern.

I’d imagine that prices will only continue to rise as climate change further affects the main growing regions in Asia and Africa too. Britain without its regular cuppa? The mind boggles.

But beef, yes, it’s true that the prices have been very good in the short term. Though, as always, the headlines don’t tell the full story.

Production costs have increased dramatically, feedstocks are critically low after the dry summer, and there’s the never-ending financial nightmare of TB, not to mention the new problem child on the block – bluetongue.

A little too rare

If beef really does start to become a luxury that few can afford – what then?

There’s plenty of data to show that consumers are already changing their eating habits, and chicken has long since become the most popular meat in the UK, accounting for well over 40% of the total meat consumed.

It’s not hard to see why, either, with a whole bird being such a consistently high-quality product and phenomenal value for money.

Things change, I suppose. But I worry about the steady erosion of our culture and identity in this country.

Many of our institutions are already gone – village bobbies, church and chapel congregations, post offices, local banks, independent shops. Heck, even pubs are closing. And let’s not mention family farms.

In the end, what will be left? Just a divided nation of people who don’t know their neighbours, shouting at each other on the internet. What a thoroughly depressing thought.

I’m off to eat a steak and drink a cuppa to cheer myself up.