Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
damental hange occurred in the political signiicance of actual agricultural produ-
cers in the core countries themselves. What had become apparent during the Great
Depression was that, after a century of focus on policy regimes to support industri-
alization, core industrial countries like the USA still actually relied on some level of
economic prosperity in the domestic agriculture sector as well. Atempts to recon-
struct Europe (poorly) after the First World War were demonstrating a similar vul-
nerability of industrial economies to weakness or stagnation in domestic agriculture
sectors. Finally, the various traumas of the Second World War, particularly the ef-
fective isolation of Britain from its primary food supply (abroad) by the German U-
Boat fleet, and the massive political intervention required to prevent some in Britain
from starving, all contributed to a major shift in political thinking around the im-
portance of domestic agriculture sectors in industrial countries. The emerging threat
of the Cold War strengthened this resolve, given that the potential of the Soviet bloc
to isolate Western Europe from its global food supply was even more pronounced
than the blokade of Britain in the Second World War. In the 1950s, during that peri-
od prior to massive proliferation of nuclear weapons whih made suh scenarios less
appealing, Soviet military strategists even calculated the putative number of days
that Western Europe could sustain itself on domestic food sources during a potential
continental blokade.
he answer to this hallenge was to dramatically shit focus bak onto domestic
agriculture and food production in the industrial core countries. Friedmann and
McMihael (1989) identify the key political shit post-Second World War as being to-
wards supporting food security by encouraging domestic agriculture. In industrial
countries this meant a major reconfiguration of agricultural policy. Beginning with
a cluster of legislation around the UK Agricultural Act of 1947, and coupled with
the US-led Marshall Plan in Europe, policy rapidly evolved to direct state subsidiza-
tion towards agricultural production at home. Government subsidies to increase the
rate of agricultural mehanization; incentives to use fertilizers; adopt new breeds and
varieties; consolidate landholdings; and undertake skills development in the emer-
ging tehniques of industrial/intensive agriculture were partnered with state invest-
ment and support to enable the transition of wartime industry into agricultural ap-
plications (explosives into fertilizers, tanks into tractors, gases into pesticides).
By the later stages of the 1950s (in the US) and the mid-1960s (in UK/Europe),
these policies were demonstrably successful. During the 1950s, the Marshall Plan
ceased to act as the conduit for agricultural surpluses from the US into the recovering
