Digging for victory!
Take a trip to the past to discover what farming was like during wartime…
At no time in history has farming been more important than during World War Two. Britain faced a potentially devastating food crisis as German U-boats sank hundreds of merchant ships carrying vital foodstuffs – and it was up to farmers to make sure Britain wouldn’t be starved into submission.
In the first of a new three-part series exploring how farming practices have evolved since the Iron Age, historian
Ruth Goodman and farming brothers Dave and Rob Nicholson relive what life was really like for those keeping Britain fed.
‘At the beginning of the war, 70% of our food was being imported,’ explains Ruth. ‘All the Nazis had to do was to stop the supply.’
At the outbreak of war, more than half of British farms were entirely horse-powered.
Ruth shows Rob and Dave
Doing their bit... Wartime harvesting
a game-changing piece of wartime machinery, the Fordson tractor, which helped farmers reach the Government target of ploughing an extra two million acres of land in a year.
‘Being a farmer in wartime wasn’t the same as going to fight on the battlefields. But farmers did their bit, they fed troops and stopped Britain starving,’ explains Dave. ‘The farming community stood up and were counted when it mattered!’