From the editor: What can we learn from WWII food production? Farmers should lead the way

11 November 2022 • 2 min read

This week Farmers Guardians features editor, Emily Ashworth, explores how looking back could help us move forwards.

It was Churchill who said, Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And looking back over the years, through each crisis the world faced, it was farming which has continued to keep calm and carry on.

During World War Two the country saw one of its biggest successes, as those who took to the land to farm managed to keep our agricultural cogs turning, resulting in a rise in homegrown food. Had this not happened, it would have undoubtedly been one of the most demonstrable chinks in our nations armour and led us into submission through starvation.

Fast forward a few decades, the tastes of the nation have changed and, more so, foods that were once seasonal delicacies are now year-round pleasures. But the question is, in what ways has this cost us? Perhaps the more important question is, how do we fix it?

We are in a new era of agriculture, one where change is probably necessary to survive as we face multiple obstacles including subsidy loss, a global climate emergency and trying to navigate our way through Brexit.

This has only presented us with further uncertainties. We have, however, turned food production on its head before and maybe to move forward we need to look back.

There are vital lessons to be learned from the past, as explored in this weeksFarming: The Backbone of Britain, Great Britains fight for food.Historian Paul Reed said that although during the war the country was facing one of its most dangerous battles, a positive was that there was a huge focus on food waste, self-sufficiency and eating in a different but more practical way.

But what stands out most is that even in its darkest hour, community was, as ever in farming, at the heart of it. Thousands of women left their homes and families to join the Womens Land Army; farms welcomed prisoners of war; those who could not be on the front line joined the fight from Britains countryside and, as one, they managed to keep the country fed.

We now have new battles to fight and the world has changed but, at the crux of this, is a fact we cannot get away from: people still need to be fed. The countrys farmers should once again be allowed to lead the way.