Agency and environment in the transition to a productivist farming regime in England and Wales, 1939–50

Ecocide, or environmental destruction, and the attack on culturally significant buildings, have recently been highlighted as purposeful elements in wartime tactics (Bevan 2006). But another form of wartime environmental impact has been rather less studied: the transformation of landscapes to meet the requirements of defence or for the supply of emergency food supplies. By late 1939, British preparations for a siege economy propelled the countryside into greater productivity for human food, aiming to divert shipping away from food imports to the importing of the machinery and munitions of war. Such emergency strategies took immediate precedence over the fledgling rural amenity, planning and aesthetics movements.