Storing v hoarding

[grenfell]

Didn't we used to have food mountains and wine lakes in Europe? I can't find out if they still exist , a google search seems more concerned with the CAP reform. Where they a strategic store or was it the government hoarding food. That's probably the difference , governments store and joe public hoards.
I tend to think the fears about "they" , armed squads or whatever raiding homes are unfounded. As said it would take a huge amount of people to enforce it and logistically the government hasn't hoarded , sorry stored, enough fuel for all the trucks and vans required for such a task.

[cpslashm]

IIRC, the butter mountain, etc., was about Europe buying food from small inefficient farmers at guaranteed high prices. I think eventually, the excess food was dumped.

[jansman]

those "mountains " were gotten rid of WELL before 1990. We had to take(aswell as supermarkets ) EU Beef. It was very good stuff, and we had to sell it at a controlled price. Next door to that shop was a community centre. There they distributed cheese to OAP and benefit claimants. One old boy said that amount of cheese would constipate him for a month!

[grenfell]

I see, that's why there's so little information on tinterweb then, the mountains have become hillocks at best then
I can see the arguments against over production and the inherentent financial costs but surely having some sort of store or strategic reserve makes perfect sense on a nation wide scale. Foodstuffs can be used in sequence whether it's just one person rotating his preps of tins of beans or the EU rotating 1000tonnes of beef or grain at a time.
There was concern last winter that we only kept a few days ( or was it a couple of weeks) worth of gas but little seems to be said about our poor level of food security.

[cpslashm]

but surely having some sort of store or strategic reserve makes perfect sense on a nation wide scale.

See rationing thread
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9822

[grenfell]

Yeah I have read that , keep us informed if you get a decent answer to your questions.

[lonewolf]

there is no such thing as a UK "strategic reserve", the reserves are only what is held in the supermarkets.

[cpslashm]

Yeah I have read that , keep us informed if you get a decent answer to your questions.

I'll even keep you informed if the answer isn't decent!

[FEISTY]

On TV the other night (The Truth About Food), footage of the Indian rice mountain. A seriously and unbelievably (if you hadn't seen it on-screen) huge amount of rice being stored just in hessian sacks (not a Mylar bag to be seen) piled up in warehouses and a lot of it getting wet and rotting outside. Part of the reason why our rice prices are so high over here. The explanation was that the person who can show India that he/she won't let them starve will win the majority of votes. Doesn't seem to matter if the food goes to waste as long as it's there.

[grenfell]

I've seen a few of those programmes but not that one. In some respects it can be a comfort (despite being as frustrating as feck) as it shows what I call the slack in the system. The whole situation could be improved as you say for the sake of a handful of Mylar bags. It , however, seems to be a prerequisite for anybody to hold any sort of power to be completely devoid of common sense