Agriculture and the State

This chapter shows changes in the thinking about the role of the state and market intervention in the interwar period. To intervene, governments had to allocate scarce resources to build state capacity, the outcome of political bargaining over how to raise the necessary resources, and establish spending priorities. This is followed by looking government intervention in farm markets, and the role of the landed elites lobby in Western Europe obtaining protection with higher tariffs, which benefited governments by providing revenue and easing the balance-of-payments constraints. The First World War resulted in a massive increase in state capacity in areas of economic planning and market intervention to increase domestic farm production. Finally, governments were generally reluctant to invest in agricultural research and extension services in the period because the political returns were too slow to appear. Only when either farmers themselves developed strong organizations to lobby, or domestic agriculture could reduce the country’s dependence on food imports would governments respond.