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The latest warnings from the Bank of England and Britain’s supermarket leaders should not be seen as an isolated inflation story. They are another indication that the global food system, built during decades of economic expansion and abundant cheap energy, is becoming progressively less reliable.

The immediate causes are familiar enough. Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, disrupted harvests, war in the Middle East, higher fertiliser prices and more expensive transport are all pushing food prices upwards. Yet these are not separate events. They are interacting pressures acting on a system that has become increasingly fragile.

For many years Britain has relied on the assumption that food could always be obtained from somewhere else. If Spain suffered drought, another country would supply the fruit. If one shipping route became difficult, another could be found. If energy became more expensive, the additional costs could simply be absorbed by a growing economy.

Those assumptions are beginning to fail.

The shrinking economy described by Tim Morgan means that societies are no longer becoming steadily wealthier. Instead, there is less surplus energy available to support increasingly complex global supply chains. At the very moment when climate instability is increasing, the economic capacity needed to absorb repeated shocks is declining.

Food inflation is therefore becoming structural rather than temporary.

Every disruption now exposes another weakness. A wildfire destroys olive groves. Drought reduces cereal yields. Conflict interrupts fertiliser supplies. Fuel prices rise. Transport costs increase. Supermarkets compete for scarcer produce. Consumers pay more.

Governments naturally respond by promising to reduce the cost of living. But governments cannot legislate for plentiful harvests, cheap diesel or abundant fertiliser. They cannot command rain to fall or shipping lanes to remain open.

The danger is that politics continues to promise outcomes that the physical economy can no longer deliver.

Britain has become heavily dependent upon imported food. Many products travel thousands of miles before reaching supermarket shelves. Such systems work well during periods of stability. They become progressively less dependable when confronted by repeated environmental, geopolitical and economic shocks.

Localism offers a different direction.

Instead of asking how global supply chains can be restored to their previous efficiency, localism asks how communities can become less dependent upon them.

This does not imply complete self-sufficiency. Few localities could produce everything they require. It does mean increasing resilience by shortening supply chains wherever practical.

The opportunities are numerous.

• More locally grown fruit and vegetables.
• Greater support for nearby livestock producers.
• Local food processing.
• Farmers’ markets and community food hubs.
• Community orchards.
• Allotments and productive gardens.
• Better food storage and preservation.
• Reduced dependence on imported seasonal produce.

Each step may appear modest, but together they reduce vulnerability to distant disruptions over which local communities have no control.

The coming years are likely to bring more frequent weather extremes across many food-producing regions. They are also likely to bring continuing geopolitical instability, rising insurance costs, higher transport costs and increasing pressure on agricultural inputs. None of these developments sits comfortably alongside a highly centralised food distribution system.

The lesson is becoming increasingly clear.

Food security can no longer be measured simply by the amount of food available somewhere in the world. It depends upon whether that food can still be produced, transported, financed and delivered at prices ordinary households can afford.

In a shrinking economy these conditions become steadily more difficult to satisfy.

Local food production will never replace international trade entirely. Nor should it. But every tonne of food produced close to where it is consumed reduces exposure to the growing uncertainties of the global system.

The cost-of-living debate therefore risks concentrating on symptoms rather than causes.

The deeper issue is that Britain has built its food system around assumptions that belong to the age of expansion. Those assumptions are being overtaken by physical limits, declining economic surplus and increasing environmental volatility.

As global supply chains become less dependable, local food resilience ceases to be an environmental ideal or a lifestyle choice. It becomes an economic necessary.