MAFF was formally dissolved on 27 March 2002, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Dissolution) Order 2002 (SI 2002/794) came into force.

Though its founders hoped the board would become a department of state it was never more than a private society which spread useful knowledge and encouraged improvements in farming.

Another predecessor was the Cattle Plague Department, set up by the Home Office to deal with an outbreak of rinderpest in London in June 1865.

In 1916, Rowland Prothero was appointed President of the Board of Agriculture with a seat in the Cabinet and with the aim of stimulating food production.

The Ministry's Wheat Commission took over flour mills and dictated the shape and weight of bread, prohibiting sales of muffins, crumpets and teacakes.

The Agriculture Act 1920 set out guaranteed prices for wheat and oats based on the 1919 averages, to be reviewed annually.

Over the next few years, its workload grew.In the late 1920s and early 1930s the government introduced new measures to support domestic agriculture and farmers' income.

Subsidies or price insurance schemes were created for sugar beet, wheat, cattle, dairy and sheep.

The Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Act 1928 promoted the standardisation of grades and packaging and introduced the "National Mark", a trade mark denoting home-produced food of a defined quality for eggs, beef, apples and pears.

In 1936 the tithe rent charge was abolished, compensation paid to the Church and the money recovered from farmers over a 60-year period.

In 1937 a scheme was introduce to subsidise the spreading of lime on agricultural land to boost the fertility of the soil.

The UK entered the war well prepared for the maintenance of supplies of food but with less than 40% of the country's needs produced at home.

In the 1970s, the IRA detonated some explosives in front of the Ministry of Agriculture building in Whitehall, killing one man and injuring 215.

By the beginning of the Cold War, it had become clear that in the event of a nuclear strike against Britain, such an attack would have devastating effects on the food supply.

The MAFF would play a central role in government emergency planning, especially with the Transition to War period that would occur in the event of NATO being involved in a large-scale conflict in Europe.

[6] A large network of buffer depots containing foodstuffs, known as the Strategic Food Stockpile, were maintained by the MAFF.

A full detailed list of these buffer depots was included in Duncan Campbell's 1983 book War Plan UK.