In 2020, the National Lockdown restrictions permitted only businesses categorised as ‘essential’ to trade.
These were the unavoidable functions that were considered essential to living in today’s world.
No surprise that food and toiletries businesses topped the list.
The pandemic was a reminder that when it comes down to what matters, eating, drinking, and running our households are non-negotiable and will remain so during any emergency.
In business, having such a strategic edge is called a sustainable competitive advantage, or investment moat.
It basically means that no matter what happens, if your business serves food, drink or household necessities, then you’ll always be in business.
A prudent pot to invest in.
Whilst trends offer explosive growth within opportune windows, necessities offer generational relevance and dividends if run profitably.
Put into perspective, smallholders have a significant sustainable competitive advantage.
The holding is a land asset that can be farmed or otherwise used for food production. This naturally bakes in such strategic advantage into your future earnings.
Sure, a variety of economic challenges are blighting the global and UK food economy.
And farmers are going through a tough time, many being forced out of their hereditary occupations by modern day financial headwinds, such as inheritance taxes, rising input costs to name but two.
However, the problems experienced are less a result of rising tides of economic adversity. But more due to a loss of sovereignty through successive generations yielding to industrialism, capitalism and becoming overladen with debt.
This has led to the strange position of today where undeniably the essential domestic food producers, though vital to our self-sustainability, are so removed from our natural dependence because what we eat doesn’t necessarily come from local sources.
Therefore, those producers are being deemed non-essential by our exercising of free-market choices.
However, in reality, if the industrial distribution centres and systems collapse tomorrow.
The stark reality of our actual dependence on local producers would become desperately apparent.
So, the true challenge is not how we bank on frivolous contemporary cultural trends, but how we regain sovereignty over our own food production.
Let’s keep rural business essential.
The Smallholdings Team.