Why was there lack of food during WW2 in the UK?

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There wasn't a lack of food in the UK, not in the sense that people weren't getting enough to eat or were suffering malnutrition. What there was is a lack of variety of food. Anything which was imported (citrus, tropical fruits, tea, coffee, sugar), expensive (meat) or important to the war effort (fats, meat, canned anything) would be rationed. Rationing was also introduced to prevent hoarding, shortages, price gouging and ensure everyone got their fair share.

Ian McCollum spent a week eating according to the British rationing plan to see what it's like. His British Ration Week series records his findings, as well as discusses the rationing plan in detail, its architect Lord Woolton, and its egalitarian aspects. I'd suggest watching it to get a visceral feel for what they were eating.

It has even been claimed that people in the UK were healthier during the war because they were eating a healthier diet prescribed by the Ministry Of Food. The ration cards ensured everyone got enough, and also that few ate to excess. The study assumed everyone "could eat as much potato, vegetables, and wholemeal bread as they wanted". This was a fair assumption, they were not rationed during the war.

The UK had to feed a population of about 50 million during WWII. At the start of the war it imported...

70% of its food; this required 20 million tons of shipping a year. 50% of meat was imported, 70% of cheese and sugar, 80% of fruits, 70% of cereals and fats, 91% of butter. Of this, 1/6th of meat imports, 1/4 of butter imports and 1/2 of cheese imports came from New Zealand alone, a long ways away by shipping lanes.

It's wrong to conclude that Britain could not feed itself. Some of this would be imported as luxuries, others for economic reasons, that it was cheaper to import food than produce it locally. When Britain realized it was going to war, local food production was ramped up. (If anyone has UK agricultural production numbers for 1935-1950 that would be great)

On top of food, Britain imported fuel, raw materials and manufactured goods. Wartime requirements increased these needs dramatically requiring a million tons of imported material per week to stay alive and in the fight. Wartime priorities meant luxurious food items would be skipped.

British shipping was quite vulnerable to attack, and the early loss of France and Norway allowed the Germans to put aircraft and submarines even closer to the UK. The British were losing hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping each month putting further strain on their supply line.

Finally, the wartime needs meant that much of the traditional farming population were needed for the war effort. By war's end 7.6 million people, 15% of the population, served in the British military. Plus more working in factories producing war goods. This left a shortage of farm labour. The Women's Land Army was formed, first as volunteers and later by conscription, to make up the shortfall.

Farmers increased the number of acres under cultivation from 12,000,000 to 18,000,000, and the farm labor force was expanded by a fifth, thanks especially to the Women's Land Army.

Upvote:-11

Rationing and ultimately food "shortages" are an inevitable consequence of command economies.

What happens is that the government orders that certain goods must be sold at a particular prices. They do this so that THEY, meaning the government need only pay low amount to feed their soldiers. This process is contagious, because if you just fix the price of, say, wheat, then farmers will stop growing wheat and grow corn instead. Therefore, ALL prices have to be fixed.

Once prices are fixed, production decreases because it is less profitable to make the good. Therefore, you have smaller amounts of goods at lower prices. Everyone scrambles to buy at the artificially low prices. For various reasons suppliers will often prefer to sell to retail customers, not to the government at these low prices. To stop this the government uses "rationing". Private people are only allowed to buy limited amounts, all the rest must be sold to the government (at the artificially low price).

In many cases even this is unworkable, so the government simply makes it illegal to sell to anyone except the government. For example, in both England and the USA it was illegal to sell butter or eggs or meat to private people. Only the government (or privileged people like doctors) could legal buy such things. Private people could only legally buy margarine and other such substitutes.

My grandmother described the margarine she (and everyone else) had to buy instead of butter. It came in a plastic bag and had a packet of a red dye. You would empty the dye packet into the margarine bag, which was a white goo. Then you would squish it around inside the bag and it would turn yellow. That was your "butter". The limited amount of real butter went to government officials and soldiers.

Question Politics Radar

Obviously this a politically sensitive subject. As can been seen from the apologetic nature of the other (so-called) answers (and nit-picking my answer), noone wants to suggest that Britain (or the USA) did something wrong or oppressive by rationing. Thus, what you may read (even in economics textbooks) is a long list of rationales and excuses--explanations of why rationing was "necessary". One answer above even went so far as to excuse rationing because it supposedly was HEALTHIER, LOL. By that logic we should praise concentration camp starvation because it cleaned out the arteries of all the inmates, no heart disease! My answer above honesty explains why rationing occurs and why it causes shortages. You can read economists like Mises for more detailed explanations along the same lines. Mises, who believed rationing is never necessary, brilliantly led Austria's economy to stability as a chief advisor and minister, even though Austria LOST the Great War. Compare to Britain which WON WW2, yet was still rationing years later.

Upvote:-3

UK you see was prepared for the ravages of the incoming war. Proper policymaking during war times prevented UK from the ravages the axis occupied countries experienced. UK also had an advantage of having occupied a country like India from where they supplied food to both the civilians & the soldiers however this was also the reason of massive food shortages in India which resulted in the 1943 Bengal Famine.

Upvote:14

UK, like most other developed (and not so developed) countries, does not produce all food that it consumes. Some food is imported. In the case of UK during WW2 much of the food was imported. As the war started,

a) the oceans became dangerous. Because of the German cruisers and submarines.

b) the shipping capacities were needed for other purposes (to ship troops and military supplies) So there was a shortage of shipping.

For these reasons, there was a shortage of food, and they had to introduce rationing.

A less important reason in the case of UK, but important for other countries like Soviet Union, was the shortage of labor in agriculture, because of the military draft. But I don't think this third reason was important for UK.

EDIT. On the discussion in comments about "when was the world globalized". It is well known that the major source of food for ancient Rome was Egypt. And sometimes this was reason for major wars.

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