With oil prices set to jump to $200 a barrel by Christmas, maybe it is a blessing in disguise. It would mean that people would start to have to buy locally, less miles, cheaper to the consumer, and therefore more within the natural food cycle. No more tasteless Strawberries in January from Papua New Guinea or grapes from Brazil in March.

What do you think?

Cheers

Nick

The price of food will go up and up in line with supply and demand - if you think you will be enjoying cheaper food grown locally, think again, well unless you are going to grow it yourself.

No blessing in disguise I'm afraid.

But wouldn't it be cheaper to get it delivered from a farm in Kent than a farm in Kenya?

If only life were that simple.

Unfortunately these days prices are adjusted according to supply and demand, rather than just the production and transportation costs.

The increases in demand in places like China are causing food prices to rise anyway, and the higher transportation costs will just add to that factor.

The supermarkets are pretty unpopular with farmers and some foodies, but if there wasn't the competitive edge in the market place, then food would cost a lot more than it does now.

I accept that factory farming and intensive breeding methods have a distinct downside to them, but without such methods the price of food would be soaring even more than it is - I'm not justifying poor treatment of animals in any way, which is never acceptable.

I don't pretend to know what the answers are - but one things for sure, the price of food is rising fast and is likely to go on doing so.

It is a massive problem that's going to hit us all hard very soon - As if it isn't bad enough now!!

I'm going to adapt my allotment I think and grow even more.

I think there's a lot to be said for growing one's own food.

A few years ago I came up with an idea for a very cheap polly tunnel for use in domestic gardens - even made a prototype - I might revive the idea soon.

Oooohhhhh tell me, tell me, tell me

Oh all right then!

But it's fairly basic stuff as the main object of the exercise was to find the cheapest materials available that would do the job and be fairly durable.

First was a base made of cheap, treated, fencing timber - all it involves is a rectangle the size of your tunnel - I bought the timber in B&Q for about a fiver.

The struts are made from round plastic tubing - i.e. the pipe they use for overflows sold at B&Q again. Holes are drilled into the base on each side so that the plastic tube can be pushed in at each end to form an arch.

Then the frame is covered with heavy duty polythene sheet. A good couple of feet need to be left spare at the base so that it can be weighted down with paving slabs, gravel or soil, otherwise come a windy day, it will take off like giant kite! The ends need to be well secured too, so that the wind doesn't get into the tunnel.

That's all that is involved - as I remember, a reasonable sized tunnel costs about £25 to make - and it should be fairly weatherproof.