Introduction: The International Farm Crisis

Writing in 1927, Sir Alfred Mond set out the terms on which agriculture could make a recovery from prolonged depression: Knowledge is power, and knowledge is just as much power in the pursuit of agriculture as in the pursuit of any other human (activity) … in other countries scientific research, the breeding of the best kind of plants to use on the land, improvements in stock, research in a hundred directions, has been the best business investment governments have made … Governments cannot go on treating agriculture as a kind of stepchild. You must build on the fundamental basis of tenure by the means of credit, better methods and marketing and when you have combined these you will see in this country more prosperous and flourishing agriculture, and as it is more flourishing industries will benefit, because farmers and the soil are the basis of prosperity of all countries (Mond, 1927: pp. 293, 303) Mond was writing at a time when the farm crisis gripping Europe and North America, was one of falling prices, repossession of farms and unemployment. But his words proved prophetic, and the alliance between industry, government and farmers which he sought was the basis of sustained recovery some two decades later.