Some responses:

Keith said: 'the shite spring and late summer had undone her too, the plantings rotting in the ground. She said that her pea crop had survived but that was it' - funny, peas were one of the only things that have done reasonably well for us too. Other things survived but mostly just sat there waiting for sunshine and warmth that still hasn't really arrived. My partner's better at the cutting losses thing - I just put up with sh!t and adapt until I hit a crisis point and something has to give, not great. We're lucky in that we haven't invested too many thousands in the business such that sunk cost fallacy kicks in and we don't feel like we can leave. If you can call that luck... Lack of 100% do-or-die commitment has its plus points, but if it means you just bumble around from place to place and failure to failure, with the prospect of actually earning enough to live on receding ever further into the distance, then that's no good either.

Fionn said: 'It's a huge amount of work involved for something that is at the mercy of changing weather patterns [...] some things look like they'll never fruit at all because of the low temps (courgette, pumpkin, etc).' - yup, only got our first harvest of courgettes today, nearly a month later than last year and more like 2 months after they'd be ready down south. Undersowed the squash with green manure because I don't think they're going to produce anything at all this year. In growing it feels like you can cope with a few disasters per year as long as there's a big enough window of good weather that things can recover, but relentless cold, damp and dim conditions ruin everything. Especially since we're not field scale with tractors etc, thus relying on being able to get multiple crops per season from the bed space.

'The government isn't interested in supporting small organic producers and definitely not in people living self-sufficiently.' - agreed, I'll eat my hat if the red tories prove any more supportive of small farmers than the blue ones were. And forget about them aiding self-sufficiency: government exists to undermine that and get people dependent on the market economy to supply their needs. One Planet Development in Wales seemed to be set up to only allow hyper-educated people a fighting chance, with the application process requiring PhD levels of form-filling. And of course, people who have reached that level of education only manage to do so by neglecting physical, practical skills which are precisely what you need to meet the goal of 60% self-reliance for all goods within 5 years.

John said: 'If there is one thing that should be supported, it is the growing of essential foods.' - yes, although unfortunately the nature of the sector, especially in organic or small scale, is that growers gravitate towards the crops that pay the most - mixed salad, herbs, soft fruit etc rather than the staples that would actually supply bulk calories for the basis of a healthy diet. Hence the perception of organic as middle class virtue signalling priced beyond the ability of most people to pay on a regular basis. The suggestion of subsidised food for schools would be a good way to democratise this, though it would require a lot of changes to how school meals are produced, re-skilling of staff, flexibility of menus, better cooking facilities etc. But that relies on govt doing something sensible for a change instead of merely managing wealth flows to the biggest donors and servicing the requirements of corporations first & foremost.

In short I'm not seeing a way out of this through the 'normal' channels, and there has to come a point where people go on the offensive and take what we need rather than lamely petitioning to be given the various vanishing pittances & crumbs the overlords deem acceptable. That will look like land occupations, autonomous village-scale communities with people coming together to provide directly for their own needs and leaving the broken society behind forever. It doesn't matter if something doesn't work as a business as long as it can work for a community. Really, the two goals are probably mutually exclusive.

cheers,
I