We gardeners like to get on with things. Do what must be done, according to circumstances. Weather, time, scale. Beneath the mundaneness are many motives: pleasure, food output, being in the outdoors. Sounds and silence. The physicality. Exercise. Friendship. Skills. Watching others. Messing about. Looking. And learning from mistakes.

I have spent more than two years reviewing potential impacts from shocks to the food system, requested by the National Preparedness Commission. Is the public adequately prepared for shocks? I don’t think it is but there are good things we can amplify.

I considered: what shocks might affect the public? How would people react? Are they aware of the possibility? What might happen? Do people retreat to individualism or become community minded?

These are huge questions. Many shocks could disrupt what we think of as normal. The entire food system is based on Just-in-Time, itself based on computerised logistics. There is little ‘redundancy’, flexibility in systems. I’ve had to walk through the impact of big shocks, also lesser order shocks, a few disruptions. How might they knock on? What is essential?

The report title is deliberate: Just In Case. Just-in-Time systems may be brilliantly efficient, but they are disruptable. Take a look at the report¹ (actually there are two). The main report is detailed and long. A shorter summary gives the overview.

There’s a whole chapter on the kinds of things people can do such as growing a bit of food. But you don’t do that the day after shock happens. You need to have that underway before! Since we don’t know when shocks come, that means there ought to be more gardening now.

Up to 4.9% of UK land is residential gardens². But what are they used for? Too much is neither sustainable nor food focussed. So if some can be food focussed, how can that be community oriented?

Regionalised food for communities

I was interested to see other countries thinking community gardening. And particularly that some cities and towns are way ahead in thinking how to rebuild regionalised food. (There’s a chapter on that.) The UK also has a remarkable body of academics engaging with this agenda ^3,4. Some have calculated what cities and regions could do ^5,7.

I interviewed senior people across the food system, getting their judgement on what’s needed to make UK society more prepared. My colleagues and I also interviewed people doing ‘ordinary’ jobs and roles. The people who are sent in to look after us if crises happen, the blue-light services for example, and local suppliers, were wrongly ignored by government during the pandemic⁴.

How we recover from a food shock

The key message is there’s not been enough thought into how to help the public bounce back after food shock. There’s some thinking and planning. It just ignores food.

There are official risk assessments - the 2025 National Risk Register for instance⁸. This gives 89 risks facing UK society, but only one is food-related: the risk of mass food contamination.

Interviewees for my report were clear there’s more than one food risk deserving attention. Food can be both a source of shock (when it runs out or is hit) and is vital to help populations bounce back. Food analysts believe we’re now in a new era, not of single but multiple crises⁹. Food troubles can cascade and amplify. (There’s a chapter on that.)

Fear not, the UK state offers some public advice. Mostly this is from local blue-light services and authorities. Take a look at West Yorkshire¹⁰. The ‘Prepare’ website from the Emergency Planning College (yes, there is one) suggests we all store three days of food¹¹. Other countries recommend a week, some more. (I look at 10 countries in Chapter 6.) I want to know the basis for that advice. What sort of foods? Can people afford this? What if gas or electricity go down?

Food emergencies can quickly become very real, I assure you. But not enough thought has been given to how we live our lives. Or how communities can come together to prepare or what resources they have. State services are stretched. Local Resilience Forums (there are 42 for England and Wales) cannot cover food but know it’s coming on the agenda (see Chapter 10).

Shocks to the food system are certain. Some are here already. Drought one moment, floods and storms next. The creeping arrival of massive conflicts disrupting ‘normal’ supply chains.

What focus there is mostly looks at existing supplies, not what the people can do. Yet we know from modern conflicts and our national past that the ‘food front’ quickly becomes important if disrupted¹².

The part played by gardens

It’s no surprise that gardening came up in many interviews. There’s a whole chapter on gardening at different scales, and much attention on what citizens can do. I’m particularly impressed by the community gardens. This is neither private home gardens nor commercial horticulture, but the in-between. Take a look at FlintShare in North East Wales¹³.

I hope Just in Case interests Garden Organic members. Interviewees helped me explore the state of UK food supply chains, the weakness of current food policy, the stresses and strains already upon us. The inequality of access to food. Much that is sensitive – such as protection from massive cyber-attacks.

At the heart of my report are old questions. I think we should inject food into security thinking and defence into food policy. Something to ponder while you garden.

Read Tim's full report: Just In Case: seven steps to narrow the UK civil food resilience gap, here.

References

1. Lang T, Neumann N, So A. Just in Case: narrowing the civil food resilience gap. London: National Preparedness Commission https://nationalpreparednesscommission.uk, 2025.

2. DLUHC. Land use statistics: England 2022. London: Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing, 2022.

3. H3. H3 Project: healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people. https://h3.ac.uk/. Sheffield: Universities of Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, Cambridge, Newcastle and City St Georges, Unversity of London, 2025.

4. Winter M, Guilbert S, Wilkinson T, Lobley M, Broomfield C. Feeding People in a Crisis: The UK Food System and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Bristol: Bristol University Presss; 2024.

5. Edmondson JL, Davies ZG, Gaston KJ, Leake JR. Urban cultivation in allotments maintains soil qualities adversely affected by conventional agriculture. Journal of Applied Ecology 2014; 51: 880-9.

6. Edmondson JL, Childs DZ, Dobson MC, Gaston KJ, Warren PH, Leake JR. Feeding a city – Leicester as a case study of the importance of allotments for horticultural production in the UK. Science of The Total Environment 2020; 705: 135930.

7. Walsh LE, Mead BR, Hardman CA, et al. Potential of urban green spaces for supporting horticultural production: a national scale analysis. Environmental Research Letters 2022; 17(1): 014052.

8. H M Government. National Risk Register 2025 edition. London: H M Government, 2025.

9. Swedish Government, Petersson I, Allard M, Jansson K, Berg S. Livsmedelsberedskap för en ny tid (Food preparedness for a new era). Stockholm: Statens Offentliga Utredningar, 2024.

10. West Yorkshire Prepared. Don't Panic - Prepare e.g. via: https://www.westyorkshireprepared.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2399-WYP-Dont-Panic-Prepare-Booklet-A5.pdf. Leeds: West Yorkshire Prepared consortium, 2020.

11. Emergency Planning College. Prepare - Public resilience campaign website launched: https://prepare.campaign.gov.uk/. York: UK Emergency Planning College, 2024.

12. Hammond RJ. Food: the Growth of Policy. London: H M S O / Longmans, Green and Co.; 1951.

13. FlintShare. About FlintShare. Mold: https://flintshare.org/contact-us/, 2024.

This article first appeared in the spring issue 239 of our The Organic Way members' magazine.