Niccolò Mignemi
Chargé de recherche CNRS, UMR 8236 – LIED

The seminar will analyze the wheat policy adopted by the Italian fascist regime and generally known as the Battaglia del grano (Battle of Wheat). The Battle began in 1925 and was presented by fascist propaganda as a part of its nationalist program for economic development. It introduced protectionist tariffs (import duties and quotas) but intended also to modernize and increase domestic wheat production through innovations in the farming systems and the reorganization of the cereal industry. However, the protectionist framework longtime polarized historical analysis and the impact of the Battle of Wheat has rarely been analyzed in its consequences on the wheat agri-food chain or combined with the effects of the Great Depression.

My analysis will therefore focus on the implementation of the Battle in the 1920s and throughout the general crisis of the 1930s, looking at the economic, social and environmental impact on both the farming systems and the cereal industry. Firstly, I will explore the hypothesis of the Battle as an instrument of biological innovation and technoscientific modernization. Secondly, I will question the wheat policy as the starting point for programs aiming at the rationalization of land-use and agricultural production. Finally, I will examine the Battle of the Wheat as a model for the agricultural and, in general, economic policies, which emerged in reaction to the economic crisis and prepared the war mobilization, since the mid-1930s.

Introduction by C. Bregianni 
Greek efforts for self-sufficiency in grains during the 1930s.

POSTER

PRESS RELEASE

ΒΙΝΤΕΟ ΣΕΜΙΝΑΡΙΟΥ : https://youtu.be/-NlbDrpyEH8