Feeding Britain in the Second World War
"[2] However, critics denounced abuses of the dictatorial powers that government-created committees and organisations had over farms and farmers.
Before the onset of the Second World War in Europe in September 1939, there were 350,000 farms in England and Wales and they averaged less than 100 acres (40 ha) in size.
Compared to 1914, two million fewer acres (800,000 ha) were under cultivation, pastures were neglected and overgrown, and the number of farm workers had declined by 25 percent.
[10] To produce more food, in April 1939, the government devised a plan to pay farmers two pounds sterling per acre (0.4 ha) to plough up pasture and convert the land into cultivated cropland.
"The country was marked by deep regional and class inequalities...The wealthy were consuming the lion's share of the nation's meat, fish, butter, cheese, fruit, and vegetables, while the bottom third of the nation were scraping along on a thoroughly un-nutritious diet of cheap white bread, margarine, jam, a little bacon and copious quantities of tea.
"[12] While the British had a diet of sufficient calories, one-third of the population lacked access, due mostly to poverty, to more expensive "protective" foods such as milk, fruit, and vegetables.
The Act gave the Minister of Agriculture sweeping powers to control food production and to take possession of farmland.
[14] After the outbreak of WW II in Europe in September 1939, the Ministry of Food was created and the government took on the task of ensuring that citizens had access to adequate nutrition.
First, the plough-up enabled a greater acreage to be cultivated with the priority crops of agricultural policy: potatoes, wheat, barley, and oats.
In 1943-1944, beef and veal production compared to 1939 had decreased by one-sixth; mutton and lamb by one-fifth; eggs by one-half; and pork by two-thirds.
By June 1944, the male full-time labour force consisted of 522,000 men and 150,000 women, including Land Girls.
[23] During harvest time, a "'motley crew of soldiers, the publican, the postman', school-children and even townspeople worked in the fields.
Canada assisted Britain by expanding its production of phosphates and artificial nitrogen, ingredients in fertiliser.
The bumper crops of 1943 were due to good weather and the "long hours the farmers and their labourers had invested working in the fields.
In early 1939, prior to the beginning of the war, the Ministry of Agriculture chose instead to promote "progressive" farming techniques.
"[37] Traditionally, many people in Britain were allocated small plots of land, called allotments, for growing vegetables and fruit.
[38] The Ministry of Agriculture initiated a "Digging for Victory" campaign and in three years the numbers of allotments increased to 1.7 million.
[39] Victory gardens supplemented the food supply of Britain and the production could be bartered or sold (which was illegal, but rarely enforced).
Rationing of other foodstuffs, such as "meat, cheese, margarine, eggs, milk, tea, breakfast cereals, rice and biscuits" soon followed.
Rationing aimed to reduce the supply of imported food and meat so that more resources could be devoted to the war.
[43] At the beginning of the war Britain had a large merchant fleet which brought in 22 million tons of food per year.
This supply was threatened by the occupation of most Western European countries by Nazi Germany in April, May, and June 1940 which cut off, for example, butter, cheese, and bacon imports from Denmark and the Netherlands.
[45] The British government made strenuous efforts to reduce its dependence on shipping availability to import food.
[46] Additional measures to reduce shipping included raising the extraction rate of flour from 70 to 85 percent (using more of the wheat berry rather than discarding it, thereby creating a darker and, in the opinion of many, less palatable bread), deboning and better packing of meat, and dehydrating products such as milk and eggs.
Both social classes saw reduction of their caloric and protein intake during the war, but the nutritional gap between them was much reduced.
[41] The officially-recorded closing of the nutritional gap was due to several factors including rationing of many foodstuffs, subsidies for basic foods to reduce market prices, a points system to enable people to buy non-rationed food, and British Restaurants which were public canteens to feed workers and others at a modest price.
British rationing was based on the principle of "equality of sacrifice" among all classes and income groups in the country.
Special and augmented rations were allowed small children, pregnant and nursing women, and manual workers.
The government attempted to combat this example of unequal access to food with a five shilling price limit on restaurant meals, but this control was widely circumvented.
[51] Another example of inequality in access to food was the ability of land owners to grow crops and raise animals for the their own consumption and for barter and sale.
