British Post-War Policy Towards Farm Mechanization

Abstract

ORLD WAR II and its wake of trade crises, acute labor shortage and a great backlog of consumer demand have forced British attention to means of increasing total agricultural output and output per worker in agriculture. Increased mechanization of agriculture as a means of meeting this challenge has been an integral part of British policy since the beginning of the war in 1939. Subsequent progress in mechanization has been marked. Agricultural tractors in England and Wales increased from 45 thousand in 1939 to 267 thousand in 1952; milking machines on farms more than tripled in number from 1942 to 1952; and the number of combine harvesters rose from practically nothing to over 16 thousand (Table 1).1 The Economic Survey for 1948 set forth as government postwar policy provision of agricultural machinery to the home market of more than ?40 million per year, at least until 1950-51.2 This goal has been more than met in each of the succeeding years in conjunction with a substantial and increasing export business, and at a time when materials were exceedingly short.3 British public policy has played a leading role in this growth of agricultural mechanization. For a variety of reasons mechanization has contributed less to the goals of increased food production per capita and per acre and more to other values than might have been wished by the policy planners. It is not, however, within the scope of this paper to analyse the contribution which mechanization has made to specific goals. The discussion is directed only to public policy as it has impinged upon mechanization in order to illustrate principles of the mechanization process and to provide lessons in directing public policy towards increased mechanization, if such is judged valuable. This policy has been largely