Where does our food come from?

The geography of food production is an important topic. We all need to eat, and at some times and in some places many people have not had enough to eat - millions of -people have starved. But there are big global variations in where our food comes from, and how it is produced and distributed. Two of the major influences are soil and climate both of which set limits to what can be grown or produced where. The earths climates are generally classified into a number of major types. Climate in Britain is usually classified as temperate maritime with cool wet winters and warm wet summers. But Britain climate varies considerably between the drier east and wetter west and the colder north and warmer south which both influence food production. But globally there are even larger variations between, for example Mediterranean climates with their hot dry summers - which is where we get most of our grapes, wine, olive oil and salad vegetables. Almeria in Spain is a major source - and the Russian steppes and the American prairies. In the past, until the middle of the C19th the food most people ate was locally or nationally produced. There was relatively little global food trade, although there was a long history of wine, olive oil and grain trade in the Mediterranean and major trade of herring in the Baltic and the North Sea. Nor should not forget the luxury trades in spices from South East Asia or sugar from the Caribbean. But it was the developments in refrigeration, canning, railways and steam ships from the mid C19th which really opened up the global food system supplying western countries. But in the less developed part of the world, particularly those parts prone to drought, and hit by climate change are causing major problems hitting livestock herding and subsistence agriculture. All these changes have an effect on what we eat which we consider in the next episode. Subsequently we will look at the geopolitics of food and food security in the modern world.