Consumption and food production in crisis time: Swiss consumption co-operations as farmers at the End of World War I

During the last two years of World War I food supply in Switzerland declined and caused shortcomings in consume, leading to social distress and conflict. Mainly two important factors caused these problems: First, Switzerland was highly dependent on food imports and during the war traditional supply lines faded. Second, weather extremes in the years 1916–1917 caused crop failure all over Europe and North America, which intensified the decline of food trade between the nations. In 1918 a conflict between classic urban consumers, such as workers, and famers erupted due to the food shortcomings and led to a lasting discord between urban and agrarian regions in Switzerland. But there was not only disharmony and conflict between the urban and agrarian regions. As a matter of fact several agents (urban and agrarian) interested in presenting adequate coping strategies to overcome the food shortages developed ideas of alternative ways of food production and supply since 1917. The aim of the paper is to outline these strategies that were undertaken to create a new era of food production that was not solely dependent on the agrarian sector or the import-trade. Actual growing of vegetables in estate areas is an important, but just one, factor of establishing a new system of food production, distribution and consume. The market-leading grocery stores in Switzerland nowadays (Coop and Migros) started their business during that time as co-operatives establishing new forms of distribution and food-production. So the interest of the paper is not only in actual «urban farming», but it wants to share some light on how swiss urban and agrarian spheres overlapped their functions in order to create a modern system of agro food-chains at the beginning of the interwar period.

Saving the Australian War Effort in 1916? The Significance and Impact of Global Climatic Conditions and Pests on William Morris Hughes’ Negotiations with the British Government

Taking up the thesis of Dipesh Chakrabarty (2009) that human history (including cultural history) on the one hand and natural history on the other must be brought into conversation more than has been done so in the past, this presentation will focus more closely on the significance and the impact of global climatic conditions and pests on the negotiations that Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes carried on with the British government between March and November 1916. Whereas Australia had been able to sell most of its produce in 1914 and 1915 the situation looked more serious in 1916, not least due to the growing shortage in shipping. It was therefore imperative for the Australian government to find a way to solve this problem, not least because it wanted to keep up its own war effort at the pace it had been going so far. In this context intentions to make or press ahead with a contribution to a war perceived to be more total those of the past interacted with natural phenomena such as the declining harvest in many parts of the world in 1916 as a consequence of climatic conditions as well as pests in many parts of the world.