ABSTRACT
At present, the wholesale trade in essential foods is largely in the hands of the Ministry of Food, under temporary powers assumed during the war. The Ministry of Food, as the sole importer of many essential foodstuffs, and the Ministry of Agriculture, as the negotiator of guaranteed farm prices with the home agricultural interests, in conjunction with the Treasury as the source of food subsidies, are in a position of effective control over the prices charged to the consumers for staple food commodities. The plain truth is that there has never been any effective drive towards Agricultural Co-operation in England, though it has gone somewhat farther in Wales, where small farms predominate, and in parts of Scotland. Actual Co-operative farming, as distinct from Co-operative marketing, purchase of requirements, and arrangements for the joint use of expensive farming machinery, hardly exists in Great Britain.
