The United Kingdom’s immediate post-war drive to put the agricultural industry on a firmer footing resulted in the Agricultural Act of 1920. It made provision for price guarantees across a broad range of staple crops designed to maintain adequate levels of domestic production. It was not a cheap way of going about things though, particularly given that the country was struggling with an economic climate not only drained by the demands of a long conflict but also entering a period of deep uncertainty at home and on the international stage. Politicians of all persuasions were soon espousing a far less protectionist (and expensive) policy, arguing instead for the laissez-faire trade environment that had (or so it seemed to those with rose-tinted spectacles) served the nation so well during the glory days of Victoria’s reign. Thus the United Kingdom soon returned to its bad habit of massive over-reliance on foreign food imports.
As for the allotment movement, there was precious little effort given to harnessing the momentum garnered over the course of the First World War. What actually transpired was an almost immediate falling off in demand for plots once fighting had ended; this was compounded by compelling calls for land to be given over for more and better housing for returning soldiers and their families. In the ten years from 1918, the number of allotments nationwide fell by about half a million to one million – a disappointing decline despite remaining roughly twice the 1914 levels; and over the course of the 1930s a further 200,000 plots were lost.
By the time Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the British food production sector was once again moribund. Hitler’s rise to power did ring alarm bells though, with Whitehall quickly reaching the conclusion that any conflict would leave the government no choice but to impose a system of food controls, including rationing. Yet it would still take years to put these plans into action. The situation might have been very different had greater heed been given to the urgings of Sir John Boyd Orr for a coherent national food policy.
There had long been a realisation that a great part of the population was not very healthy or robust. When the Second Boer War got underway back in 1899, a recruitment drive had provided ample evidence of the profusion of poor physical specimens among the working classes. In the end, recruiters had no choice but to enforce a height restriction of just 5 foot on potential new soldiers, a reduction of 3 inches on previous limits. The ongoing need to restock the front lines during the First World War had provided yet more anecdotal evidence of the vast numbers of young men from the Home Nations displaying signs of long-term underfeeding and malnutrition. Additionally, the global financial collapse that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to abject poverty in disparate corners of the United Kingdom. This prompted social campaigners to unite with nutritional scientists, among them Boyd Orr, to paint a clearer picture of just how important diet was for public health.
After seeing active service during the First World War, Boyd Orr, a nutritional physiologist, undertook research work for the Royal Society on the allocation of food resources. In the 1920s, he won fame for his campaigning work to guarantee milk provision for all children. Food, Health and Income, arguably his most important publication, appeared in 1936, in which Boyd Orr divided the population of the United Kingdom into six income groups to look at how adequate the diet was in each. His conclusions were shocking – over half of the population lacked the finances to obtain a nutritionally satisfactory diet, with 10 per cent of the population suffering from severe undernourishment. At that time, the Ministry of Agriculture was headed by Walter Elliot, a friend of Boyd Orr and a man firmly of the opinion that the population at large should be encouraged to improve their diets. However, having initially supported Boyd Orr in undertaking the enquiry, he then refused to publish it as an official document, realising that the results were political dynamite and his government was not in a position to vastly improve matters.
Boyd Orr’s calls for a coordinated food policy were ignored by consecutive governments who, running a country in the grip of economic depression, were unable or unwilling to confront the problem. Had they not been, the nation might have entered the Second World War with a far better developed system of focused and economical domestic food production. However, his arguments did at least catch the attention of Lord Woolton (to whom Boyd Orr would serve as a trusted advisor during the war when Woolton was Minister of Food). There Boyd Orr’s work of the 1930s would at last find an official outlet, guiding the Ministry’s advice on eating healthily and providing a framework for the national rationing system. By then, however, the government was playing catch-up.
Post-war, Boyd Orr would be invited to serve as the first Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organization (1945–8), the international body set up by the Allied nations in 1943 to guide global food policy in the period of post-war reconstruction. In 1949 Boyd Orr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his ‘great work in the service of mankind which, once begun, can never be halted’. The fact that his own government did not make better use of him earlier was undoubtedly an opportunity missed.
The British government only made the first real steps to address the potential food problems that a war might throw up in 1935. Prompted by confirmation of Germany’s air force expansion and Hitler’s reintroduction of a mass conscription programme, at the Ministry of Agriculture, Walter Elliot set up a committee to look at the issues associated with food production in wartime. In April 1936, the Committee of Imperial Defence also established a sub-committee to look at wartime food supplies.
The findings of these bodies led to the foundation later that year of the Food (Defence Plans) Department, which was nested within the Board of Trade. It was a well-timed innovation – Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia had upped tension among Europe’s powers and increased pressure on the British government to look more closely at how the country would feed itself in war (and in particular, how it could guarantee its supplies of wheat).
The new department proved less effective than was hoped, however. There was a feeling that its hands were tied by its subordination to the Board of Trade and its work was largely focused on establishing administrative systems rather than influencing national policy. Just concerned with food supply, it scarcely gave a nod to the equally important question of food production (which fell under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture); the department was also vastly understaffed, an issue that would not be remedied until the 1938 Munich Crisis had suitably concentrated minds.
There was a further problem facing those in favour of stronger government intervention. In certain political lights, this could look very similar to the sort of centralised planning that Joseph Stalin was championing in the Soviet Union and which was anathema to the vast majority of the British voting public. In the event that there was no war, no major party in British politics wanted to face accusations of championing a communist-style collectivisation programme. The reluctance of government to get stuck in was, therefore, to some extent understandable but damagingly unhelpful. Essentially, government food policy was toothless. The reality was that in the event of war, the authorities would have to be vastly more hands-on than pre-war preparations suggested.
In July 1937, there was evidence that the government was finally beginning to treat the food question with the urgency it deserved. The decision was taken to prepare and print ration books for everyone in the country, and to put them into storage until they might be required. In the event, printing was only completed a few weeks before war was declared but, even so, the intention was good.
In terms of production, the immediate pre-war focus quite rightly fell on the commercial agricultural sector, with little thought yet given to how amateur growers might contribute. The Ministry of Agriculture encouraged farmers to turn their attentions to vegetable and cereal crops, which offered greater nutritional value to more people per acre of land than meat. Where one acre of grazing pasture could support enough animals to provide meat for one or maybe two people, the same area could produce enough wheat to satisfy twenty bellies or enough potatoes for forty. In addition, cows, sheep, pigs and poultry all consumed cereal crops at a rate wholly unsustainable at a time of national crisis. Of course, the Ministry was keen to preserve enough animal farming to meet the nation’s basic needs, but the advent of war marked a sea change in British agriculture away from livestock towards crops.
Plans were prepared for a ‘ploughing-up’ campaign, under the terms of which farmers received payments of £1 for each acre of grassland ploughed up in 1938, rising to a giddy £2 in 1939. In many cases, ground was prepared for cropping for the first time in centuries. The aim was to put roughly 2 million acres of idle land into production by the 1940 harvest. There were further subsidies available to help with land drainage and to buy essential equipment and supplies. Meanwhile, farmers and farm labourers over the age of twenty-one were to be granted reserved status, exempting them from call-ups to the armed services.
In 1938, the Essential Commodities (Reserves) Act paved the way for the government to buy and stockpile key goods. The Chancellor’s budget speech in April 1938 laid out plans, for instance, for the purchase of supplies of wheat and sugar large enough to last out at least the first few months of a war. Whitehall worked closely with private sector trade associations in an attempt to regulate both production and demand of virtually all major foodstuffs, and to supervise food imports. Practically every major crop and imported food stuff came under the purview of a dedicated control board.
The 1939 Emergency Powers (Defence) Act strengthened the government’s hand, giving the Ministry of Agriculture greater control over food production and allowing it to take over farms if land was not being used in a satisfactory manner. That summer, sufficient food was set aside for basic ‘iron rations’ in the event of mass evacuations from cities under threat of aerial bombing. In addition, an Acquisition of Food (Excessive Quantities) Order of 31 August 1939 curbed stockpiling by individuals, sensibly prohibiting anyone from buying in excess of a single week’s worth of supplies.
The Cultivation of Land (Allotments) Order of 1939 finally gave a clue to the government’s intentions regarding allotment plots and their role in the food production drive. Local councils were awarded the power to requisition unoccupied land, parks and playing fields and convert them into allotments. They could also grant permission to keep livestock on plots, while allotment trespass became a statutory offence, indicating that the wartime amateur grower was to be treated with respect. Veg growing, one could surmise, was to be regarded as more than simply a frivolous hobby.
Such was the story of how the plans to deal with the food shortages that war would bring were put into place. It was a narrative regularly coloured by half-heartedness and incoherence in government. Numerous committees were established, reports commissioned and orders enacted, but at times progress was painfully slow, with short-term concerns of the market prioritised above all else for too long. It was, perhaps, indicative of a desperate hope on the part of those implementing these plans that peace would somehow triumph before their provisions need truly be tested. By the time there was consensus that there would be no such reprieve, the nation was on the back foot.