Agricultural policy of Fascism (Italy)

The Agricultural policy of fascism in Italy was a series of complex measures and laws designed and enforced during Italian Fascism, as a move towards attempted autarky, specifically by Benito Mussolini following the Battle for Grain[1] and the 1935 invasion of Abyssinia and subsequent trade embargoes (despite continued trade with Germany).

Benito Mussolini propaganda photo for the Battle for Grain

Introduction

During the Giolittian Era farmers were gathered into two distinct groups in Italy:

• The SAI (Italian Society of Farmers), founded in Rome in 1895, which was engaged in lobbying activities and as a pressure group of farmers.[2]
• The CNA (National Confederation of Agriculture), founded in 1910 in Bologna, which was in charge of trade unionism in agriculture.[3]

To counter this situation, the government of Francesco Saverio Nitti issued the Visocchi-decree in 1919, followed by the Falcioni-decree in 1920, which allowed the granting of ill-cultivated and uncultivated land to cooperatives formed by war veterans. For the first time the State gave landless peasants the necessary legal instruments to claim the right to land, despite the ambiguities and red tape.

Upon the return from the First World War, veterans returned to a promise for Latifundium, ill-cultivated land and uncultivated land to be distributed amongst them and cooperatives formed by veterans, under the Visocchi-decree in 1919 and the Falcioni-decree in 1920 under the government of Francesco Saverio Nitti. In this period there were many clashes known as the Red Biennium, in which many Italians rioted and picketed against high prices and inflation, known in Tuscancy as Bocci Bocci. (A linguistic contamination of the word Bolshevism)[4] This led to an expansion of a peasant movement with extensive and comprehensive land occupations due to a socialist hatred of veterans for the outcome of the war, who were often insulted in the street, some of which came under attack such as an Italian military officer Piero Operti who was amongst residents attacked by militant socialists.[5]

During this period two unions where created during the clashes of the Red Biennium period, known as white and red alloys, the protagonists of the clashes. Large landowners sustained a campaign of Sbracciantizzazione, selecting farmers based on personal skills, and was aimed at reducing the number of workers per day (causing a reduction of 44% to 28% of rural workers who were not landowners), failed largely due to the small assignments of land.[6]

The agricultural policy of Fascism

A fundamental principle of the Fascist agrarian policy was to apply the principles of partnership, encouraging the different social classes to work together, as opposed to the system of continuous confrontation inherent in the visions of Marxism and Capitalism.

In addition to his ideological leadership, Mussolini pursued a dictatorship of the proletariat, but favouring the peasants. The Duce aimed to create a new social class in Italy by the expropriation of large estates and the transformation of tenants into landowners and settlers.[7][8]

Measures

With the seizure of power by the Fascists, a new agricultural policy was undertaken, based upon concepts of independence and sovereignty of national markets, as well as fascist policies pursued in each sector towards foreign markets. Italy during this period was importing large quantities of grain, equal to one third of the national demand.[9]

With Fascist aims of autarky, three main methods of intervention were pursued:

• The sbracciantizzazione.
• The reclamation and expropriation of large estates.
• The Battle for Grain.

The Sbracciantizzazione

The Sbracciantizzazione was a policy pursued by the fascists with the aim of reducing or eliminating the "work day", and reducing the number of workers per day in favor of sharecroppers, tenants, and settlers, to develop small and medium properties, in favor of the development of employment contracts and encouragement of small holdings for the farmers and labourers.[10]

Reclamation and expropriation

The basic law for land reclamation was the Lex Serpieri n. 3256 of May 8, 1924,[11] aimed at land reclamation work in the Pontine marshes, with the establishment of the Land Reclamation Piscinara and reclamation consortiums (managed and funded by the state) which started channeling the waters of the river basin Astura, reclamation of swamp land, for the management of forestry and pastoral heritage.[12]

In 1926 a royal decree was launched that established two consortia: the existing Piscinara Consortium, which was extended to encompass 48,762 hectares, and the Consortium of Reclamation of the Pontine region, 26,567 hectares, a relatively lower lying area, sites formed from the territories under sea level and consisted mostly of marshland, thus remediation of reclamation was more complex. Because Mussolini was unable to act alone and did not want to alienate the propertied classes, land reclamation relied heavily on state subsidies.

By the end of the twenties however the situation changed and the control of the Consortium by the landowners was overcome thanks to the "Mussolini law" (elaborated by Arrigo Serpieri) of 1928, with which all the land that was unproductive or abandoned was expropriated by about two thirds, allowing for the passage of most reclaimed land to come under direct control of the State, which delegated it to the charity, Opera National Combatants and war Veterans (ONC) together with the management of all projects and land reclamation.[13]

Between 1938 and 1942, the second phase of reclamation was introduced with places of interest being the Puglia and Campania, regions underwent rehabilitation work and continued during World War II , overall over a total of one million hectares of land was reclamed by the fascist state.[14]

In parallel with the reclamation, fascism carried out the expropriation of large land owners, and owners of thousands of acres of land largely left uncultivated and unproductive, these areas were sown with wheat or left alone to pasture resulting in revenues. The operations of expropriation brought good results in central Italy in Apulia, and less successfully towards Sicily, where the operations of the enormous extent of expropriation of large estates (500,000 hectares), occurred too close to the war to be successfully brought to completion.[12]

The Battle for Grain

The Battle for Grain was instead a campaign (proclaimed on 20 June 1925) of autarky nationalist self-sufficieny in wheat production. It led to the establishment of the Standing Committee of the Grain, and in agreement with Mussolini, decided that the interventions of the state on agricultural production should cater mainly to the increase in the average yield of wheat per hectare, as a modest increase in the average would yield considerable results nationally.

Accordingly, the Standing Committee of the Grain had to face three major problems: Seed selection, fertilizers, and the problems of technical improvements / pricing. With a series of legal measures aimed at modernizing farming techniques (natural and chemical fertilizers, mechanization of agriculture, etc.), the protection of domestic labour from outside competition and the development of state structures (such as itinerant agricultural professorships and agricultural consortia), excellent results were obtained.[15]

Results

In 1931, only six years after the first measures of the new national agricultural policy (the launch of the Battle of the grain), Italy was able to eliminate a deficit on the balance of trade of 5 billion pounds and almost fully satisfy its need for wheat, reaching a production of 81 million tons (in the meantime it was necessary a small quantity of wheat in addition, due to population increase).

In the same year in Italy there is also the record for the production of wheat per hectare production, the U.S., until then considered the first, it reached 8.9 tons of wheat per hectare, while the Italian was almost double counting 16.1 quintals per hectare.[6]

According to a 2020 study, the increase in increase in wheat productivity due to the Battle for grain had unintended effects on industrialization and growth, which persisted over the long term.[16]

See also

• Nazareno Strampelli
• Battle for Grain
• Labour Charter of 1927

References

1. "IBHistoryHLWiki - Mussolinis Italy". ibhistoryhlwiki.wikispaces.com. Retrieved 2014-05-18.
2. Report on the reform of the Agricultural Society in the Italian National Institute of Agriculture, "Bulletin of the sessions of the Scientific-Technical Section and Section practical and propaganda of the National Institute of Agriculture", The (1922), fascicles. III, pp.. 113-122.
3. "Google Translate". translate.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved 2014-07-05.
4. Roberto Bianchi: Bocci-buds. The food riots of 1919 in Tuscany, Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki, Florence, 2001 ISBN 88-222-4983-6
5. Piero Operti in Open Letter to Benedetto Croce stated in Pino Rauti Rutilio-Dale, History of Fascism, to the Government, the National Editorial Centre, Rome, p. 107: "Who's missing arm and unarmed, those of the leg, we were unable to oppose any reaction, we snatched the medals, the trampled, they did not do more, satisfied with the gesture or off the wrath of our liabilities, and diverged. We picked up our medals from dust and returned to the Hospital "
6. Faita PA, The agrarian policy of fascism: the relationships among the rural classes, production decisions, IRRSAE Piedmont Project history, Chivasso, 1995.
7. Antonio Pennacchi, Beam and hammer: Travel in the cities of the Duce, Yale University Press, 2008
8. Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, from The Gazette dated 27 September 2008
9. In 1925 in Italy imported some 25 million tonnes of cereals, compared to 75 million tons of annual requirement. Information from Science Museum of Wheat, Nazzareno Strampelli here Archived January 26, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
10. Autobiography of Fascism, Renzo de Felice (Bergamo, Minerva Italica, 1978)
11. Schmidt, 1937
12. ACS, MAFF, B.203, II Parte. Report by President of Piscinara land reclamation consortium and the Pontine land commissar, November 5, 1930
13. Longobardii, Land reclamation in fascist Italy, (1936 pp. 197-243) Geography Library, Oxford University
14. PA Faita, agrarian policy of fascism: the relationships among the rural classes, production decisions, IRRSAE Piedmont Project history, Chivasso, 1995
15. Osvaldo Failla and Gianpiero Smoke Agronomists in Lombardy: the itinerant teaching today, Franco Angeli.
16. Carillo, Mario F. (2020). "Agricultural Policy and Long-Run Development: Evidence from Mussolini's Battle for Grain". The Economic Journal. doi:10.1093/ej/ueaa060.