Since the 1880s, when cheap North American wheat had captured the English market, British farmers had given up the attempt to feed the nation. Millions of acres of arable land, first broken up in the early nineteenth century to feed a growing industrial population, had been returned to pasture. Hundreds of thousands of men had left the land. Good grassland, created at great expense, was the principal capital asset of many farms. Store-cattle bought from Ireland or Scotland or the English and Welsh hill-pastures could be fattened with a minimum of labour and sold at a good profit to the towns. In many areas of England grains were only grown as animal feed, and other areas depended even for their feeding stuffs upon imported cereals.

The coming of war upset this equilibrium. The destruction of British shipping threatened the supply of imported grains. To avoid serious food shortages, and the demoralisation which would inevitably follow, it became necessary to alter the balance of British agricultural production. An abnormally good harvest in 1915 postponed the problem until 1916, when a poor harvest coincided with serious losses of shipping. As Lloyd George's coalition came to power stocks of food were rapidly diminishing. R. E. Prothero, the new President of the Board of Agriculture, prophesied political disaster unless the matter was taken in hand. The War Cabinet, following plans tentatively laid by the previous administration, decided to regulate consumption to make the most economical use of shipping and to encourage the production of food in Great Britain to make an absolute reduction in the amount of tonnage required.