The virtual mulaqat of the Khuddam of the Netherlands with Huzooraa was held on 30 August 2020. A khadim asked Huzooraa whether we should pay more attention to farming given the current circumstances in the world. Huzooraa replied:
“The thing is, the existing cooperation among EU countries means that they have practically distributed the farming duties amongst themselves such as this country will cultivate fruits, that country will cultivate crops and so on. It is in their best interest to continue doing so for as long as the European Union stays intact. The Netherlands has the responsibility of producing dairy products and fruits, that too of a specific kind such as pears etc. or something like that.
“Now that the UK has exited through the Brexit [withdrawal process], it will be difficult to import fruits once they completely withdraw from the EU after some time and there will also be a wheat crisis. So, they will face difficulties. Therefore, it is important for the UK to focus on agriculture and to try and develop it as much as possible. They need to try and become self-sufficient in agriculture, particularly in grains, vegetables and fruits.
“As far as Europe is concerned, it is pretty much self-sufficient for its grain. In fact, they export it too. This is the case for fruits as well. There are some specific vegetables that they import from tropical regions that are not available here unless they cultivate them in greenhouses. Therefore, the best thing would be to depend on the produce of their countries. This is all fine as long as Europe remains united. If a country is to leave the EU in the future, it will face the same difficulties that are being faced by England currently.
“When Russia was united, they had a system in place in which one state would cultivate wheat, another would produce cotton and yet others would produce other things. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it caused a lot of issues for their various states. This is why they should try to remain united.
“However, if there are chances of separation, then the politicians must think through and plan the provision of staple food for their population before planning the rest of their exit strategy. A plan should be in place for this. If you do so without planning, then you will have to go through the same issues that the UK is about to face. All the countries of the European Union should sit down and work out these complexities, such as what are the requirements of all 26 or 27 countries within the European Union and also what is their annual production of the various grains as compared to that requirement and how they could further improve that production in the future?
“So, in this regard, you are right to say that they should try to do something for this. However, if a crisis takes space after this which leads to war, and a foolish person decides to detonate an atom bomb in that war, then this will destroy any agriculture or anything else. Therefore we can only pray that Allah has mercy on us.”