England Underwater

The Met Office map of UK rainfall
between 20 and 27 November Illustration: Met Office

The Guardian has an extended report on the plight of farmers in the UK. The American drought got a lot of press over the last year, but the situation in the UK is almost as dire--if rather wetter.
The UK was facing drought conditions across large a large swath of their farming country. Then last spring, the rains returned. And then they didn't stop.

Wakestock festival in July 2012.Image from The Week

 June saw multiple flood warnings, primarily across the south-eastern UK. July saw more floods, like the Wakestock Festival, above. By November it was south-western England and parts of Wales that were getting hammered. All in all, the UK is drowning.
And the effect on farms has been devastating. From The Guardian:

It is only now becoming apparent just how terrible sodden 2012 has been for farmers, particularly those in the north-west and south-west. Wheat yields were at their lowest level since the 1980s, the potato crop at its lowest since 1976. The oilseed rape harvest and barley yields also suffered. Livestock farmers suffered too. The wet weather conditions sent the price of animal feed soaring as farmers were forced to keep their animals indoors.
For some, the consequences threaten to be devastating. Recent figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs paint a bleak picture of a year many would prefer to forget. Dairy farmers saw their income plunge by 42%. Livestock and pig farmers have seen their incomes as much as halved. There were double-digit decreases for cereal and crop farmers, too.
Many have seen their profits completely wiped out. The only way they can survive is by borrowing from the banks. "We are seeing increased levels of indebtedness," said Charles Smith, chief executive of Farm Crisis Network. "For some it's becoming unsustainable."

 Climate change is an elephant in the room, when it comes to food security. We can't grow food in a world with 400ppm carbon in the atmosphere. The evidence is mounting that we can't do it at the current average of 395 (this past spring of 2012 saw the atmospheric concentrations pass 400 is some places for the first time in human history). We probably can't do it at anything over 360, at least not long term. Farming needs a generally stable climate to function, and once we get over that magic 350 mark, things start to spin off into more and more frequent extreme events. Places like Tewksbury in England have become pretty much un-insurable because of flooding.
We've had a climate buffer, as the oceans absorbed more CO2 for us, and this gave us a half-century or so to adapt our lives over to a lower carbon footprint, and to begin mitigation. Of course we didn't do anything like that at all. We ramped up industrial agriculture, we kept burning coal, and we opened up the Tar Sands in Alberta; all really, really stupid things to have done. Currently we're on track for sea level rise of 69 feet (21 metres)--that's going to make it a bit difficult to farm any of the world's deltas--like the one under Vancouver or the mouth of the Nile.

Thinking About Production

Chickpea plant   credit: Wikipedia

Just as Britain has moved from the land of "meat and two veg" to a country full of curries and celebrity chefs (Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, etc.), so to has DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, changed its way of thinking about what the country should look at producing.
DEFRA is actually one of the more forward-thinking government departments around, and looking at the current vasriety of food consumption in the UK, they've figured out that it might be time for a change. As the Guardian reports:

Growing ingredients for Indian curries such as chickpeas for pakoras as well as a range of exotic herbs and spices would open up new markets for British farmers and reduce dependence on imports, according to government report into how the agricultural sector can operate more sustainably in future. Growing more curry ingredients domestically could also potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions from food imports.
By examining the problems facing the UK's food production and countryside through key sectors and foods including curries, breads and dairy products, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is hoping to improve food systems at a time when they are coming under increasing threat. The Green Food Project report says that major changes must be made to agriculture, food processing and retailing, if price rises are to be kept in check and the natural environment preserved.

Lord knows, DEFRA may not be perfect (but really, who or what actually is?) but at least they, and by extension the British people, are grappling with questions that the majority of Canadians still haven't heard of.