Great changes have been brought about in British farming by the war. Of these changes the most obvious as well as the most important have been, firstly, the conversion of large areas of grassland into arable to grow much needed human food crops, and secondly, the decline that has taken place in the numbers of all classes of farm livestock other than dairy cattle.

There are now welcome signs that the European war may soon be brought to a successful conclusion and the time is appropriate, therefore, for taking stock of British farming as a whole as well as of its component parts, in order to decide what developments are necessary to bring farming in this country into a sound and healthy state, so that it may yield its full profit to farmers themselves and to the nation as a whole.