Urban food production schemes in Ireland 1917—1923

摘要

Addressing the Council of Agriculture in November 1916, the Right Honourable T. W. Russell, Vice President of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland (DATI) said, 'The necessity for a greatly increased production of home-grown food becomes more and more insistent every day. The Government at the present time is bringing food from every quarter of the globe. It is doing this at immense cost and at no little risk'.He continued that while the Department was in consultation with the government in London he was not at liberty to make any announcement but it was apparent that some measures to increase food production were to be introduced.1 Drawing on reports in the Department's annual publications and in contemporary newspaper and horticultural publications this paper examines how the provisions of the Food Production Scheme relating to allotments were implemented by the DATI and the Local Government Board (LGB) inDublin and in other cities and towns in Ireland. It is worth noting that the words 'allotment', 'allotment holder' and 'allotment scheme' were usually used in official publications, while the colloquial words, 'plot', 'plotholder' and 'the plots' were used in other publications.