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Agricultural Production |
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At the outbreak of the Second World War Australia's primary industry accounted for twenty-three per cent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product. Ironically one of the significant contributing factors to Australian exports was the trade of minerals and wool (which constituted a third of total exports) with Japan. Over time the war proved an obvious fillip to the prosperity of Australian agriculture. However, the agricultural industry was hardly ready for the demands that war would place upon it initially. Having endured years of depression, Australian agriculture was hardly in a state of advancement. Many farms were run down and both working and living conditions were poor. Horsepower was still responsible for fifty per cent of the energy needed to attend crops. When war broke out it became obvious that the movement of foodstuffs would become perilous as well as being hampered by a shortage of ships. A number of primary industries were afforded guaranteed income through the negotiation of Imperial Purchase Agreements with Britain. Surplus meat, sugar, dairy products, eggs and canned and tinned fruits were industries that all benefited from this safety net. Wheat, barley, fresh fruit and wine the latter as a luxury item were less favoured in these schemes. Wool, of course, as the main Australian export was eventually granted a guaranteed status but not before some early bickering over appropriate prices. The ability of Australian agriculture to supply its domestic markets while hampered to some degrees was not disrupted in any major way. With Japan's entry into the war and the arrival of American troops and the need to supply the Pacific theatre of war, a seismic shift occurred in the way the agricultural industry was viewed. It became obvious that agriculture and not manpower would become Australia's major contribution. Surpluses that had been feared through an inability to move produce early on soon transformed to shortages as the massive war effort in provisioning troops began to outstrip the local capacity to supply the relevant goods. Efforts to maintain, let alone increase production of foodstuffs, was hampered by lack of machinery and labour, an aspect alleviated in some areas by workers in the Women's Land Army and Italian prisoners of war. A severe drought in 1944/5 in the southern part of Australia further exacerbated problems in the agricultural sector. The Government was forced to declare some foods as essential foodstuffs and limited distribution through means of rationing and increasing prices on certain commodities. If the war had a legacy for agricultural farmers it was in revealing the weaknesses in the overall organisation of Australian production which could be addressed in the postwar years. |
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