Planned Agriculture

Early one morning last week, Farmer Frederick Henry Dennis, 34, looked out over his 1,000-acre farm at Poslingford Hall, Suffolk. He saw a strange young man drive a big caterpillar tractor into a 20-acre field of ripe buckwheat and calmly begin to plow in the precious crop. Dennis ran towards him, cursing and shouting.

Said the stranger: "I have my orders. The County Agricultural Committee have ordered me to plow in this buckwheat." Then he went on plowing.

Next the village policeman arrived. He ordered Dennis not to interfere. Dennis telephoned the local office of the National Farmers' Union. At the other end of the line Secretary Gordon Smith shook his head and rang Area Secretary E. R. Benson for advice.

Stop That Tractor. Telephone wires quivered. Officials scurried. In the buckwheat field the implacable plow buried the rich crop in deep furrows. At 11 o'clock a flustered Farmers' Union official raced into the field. "Stop!" he cried. He brought a counter-order from the Farmers' Union, after consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture.

But nine of the 20 acres, and eight tons of feed worth -L-1,200, had already been plowed under. As the tractor-driver reversed his machine and drove it out of the field, he shrugged his shoulders. "I have my orders," he said.

Red Tape & Resistance. Behind the plowed-in buckwheat lay a story of red tape and planned agriculture. For two years, the Rt. Hon. Tom Williams, a Yorkshireman and Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries in the Labor Cabinet, has been struggling to enforce the plans for Britain's fields. For two years, British farmers have resisted him. Last summer Farmer Dennis had a poor wheat crop which he plowed under. The local County Agricultural Committee then ordered him to sow the same 20-acre field to a catch crop of mustard, which would also be plowed under while green to enrich the soil. County Agricultural Committees, consisting of local farmers and Ministry of Agriculture officials, have broad powers to instruct farmers what to sow and produce. But Dennis claimed that mustard would not thrive because the field was infested with charlock (wild mustard, a common agricultural pest detested by grain farmers). Anyway, he said, "I reckon to know more about how to till my own land than any Government official." Defiantly, he sowed buckwheat. Thereby he committed two offenses: 1) he ignored the Committee's orders; 2) he planted buckwheat. In Britain, a farmer cannot plant buckwheat without a license. Busy Farmer Dennis did not get one.

Buckwheat is highly suspect these days in Britain because it is off the ration and fetches the highest grain price as a scarce and valuable food for poultry, pigs and cattle. At the current price level (80 shillings per 56-lb. sack), Dennis had nearly -L-3,000 worth in his 20-acre field. He could not use it all for his 200 chickens and herd of pigs. Was he flouting the County Agricultural Committee's orders so that he could sell the buckwheat in the black market?

The law says the County Agricultural Committee can prosecute a farmer for disobeying cropping "advice," as it is called. The Committee might have ordered Farmer Dennis to plow in his buckwheat while it was green. But time passed and the Committee did nothing. Instead it let the buckwheat ripen. Then it acted. Obviously the Committee had bungled. From the depths of official seclusion, Committee Secretary Roger Sayce sent out a message: "Mr. Sayce has nothing to say about buckwheat--nothing whatever."

Meanwhile, Farmer Dennis faced prosecution, and hungry Britons would go without several thousand meals which the plowed-in grain could have provided in the form of ham, pork or chicken.

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