Amidst the cheering of VE celebrations in May 1945 the unremarked farming routines of the countryside continued. Street’s apposite comments above relate to perceptions of the countryside fostered by the media and by many middle-class and urban people. The reality of postwar rural life was different.

From as early as 1942 Whitehall officials had pondered how their administrative structures, established to ensure continuing food supplies in wartime, might be adapted to possible postwar outcomes. The end of the war in Europe brought its own tensions for farming but the period immediately after 1945 saw an ongoing level of governmental support for agriculture on an unprecedented scale. The fate of the CWAECs was included in many discussions, but as yet little has been published on the postwar committees, although voluminous files at the National Archives cover the period of their postwar existence.

As the fortunes of war had turned in favour of the Allies in 1944 the initial impetus to produce more food from British soil slackened. Yields of cereals and milk were now falling after years of intensive farming and some return to grassland was to be expected. The war had taken its toll on agriculture, as on every aspect of life in Europe. Although farmers now felt valued, and in many cases had made decent money from their wartime operations, their capital had in fact depreciated in the sense that soil fertility had declined and general building and maintenance now required attention. Many commons were now suffering from overstocking, management was sporadic and shepherding in the hills often negligible. Many saw that wartime farming had been unsustainable, especially in more difficult environments.