The Great Depression: Commodity Chains, Farm Organizations, and State Capacity

This chapter looks at the impact of the Great Depression on European agriculture, and the demands and opportunities it offered farm groups and governments to extend their influence through market intervention. It extends the earlier discussions on farm associations and state capacity to explain when farmers in wheat, dairying, and viticulture were able to form effective lobbies to negotiate with government. Governments everywhere in the 1930s found it easier to reduce imports than increase exports. The paradox of why the relatively small numbers of farmers in North-Western Europe were more successfully in obtaining government help is explained by the limited state capacity needed to impose tariffs and the development of strong commodity-specific farm lobbies. Farmers in countries such as Germany, France, or Switzerland, came to enjoy a monopoly in their domestic internal markets, with food prices double those of world levels, and in some cases helped play a role in formulating government policy. Governments in Eastern Europe had much fewer options to help agriculture, encouraging farmers to withdraw further from the market, limiting not just their political influence, but interest in defending electoral democracy.