Catalogue description Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Poultry and Small Livestock Correspondence and Papers

At the beginning of the present century the production and sale of small livestock and poultry was almost completely without organisation, losses of poultry from disease were very heavy, and standards of training in poultry keeping were low. In 1911 the Board of Agriculture set up a provisional committee to develop the formation of a National Poultry Institute with the object of providing advanced training for instructors, carrying out research and disseminating information. The project was however abandoned just before the outbreak of the First World War on the grounds of expense but in 1922 the National Poultry Institute was formed.

The Poultry Advisory Committee was established during the First World War to obtain advice on problems relating to the industry, mainly in connection with egg and poultry prices. During this period a scheme for the distribution of hatching eggs and day-old chicks was also instituted by the Board of Agriculture. Under this scheme the price of eggs and chicks was fixed and a subsidy paid to approved poultry farmers. The scheme was of considerable value but payment of a subsidy as a permanent feature was considered undesirable and in 1927 it was discontinued.

The Board of Agriculture instituted a further scheme in 1916 for the increased production of poultry, rabbits and pigs on smallholdings, gardens and allotments similar in form to schemes in operation in Scotland, Ireland and the Continent. This scheme was financed, up to September 1919, from the Development Fund which had been set up under the Development and Road Improvement Funds Act, 1909. In 1920 the Poultry Advisory Committee was discharged and a new Advisory Committee was formed, however personnel numbers increased until it proved to be unwieldly and expensive to convene and it was dissolved in April 1937.

The Accredited Poultry Breeding Stations and Accredited Hatcheries Schemes was introduced in 1933 by the ministry to encourage the production of pure bred stock for egg production and suitable pure and cross bred strains for table poultry. It laid down the manner and frequency of the testing of poultry on a station seeking to be accredited. In May 1945 the ministry assumed the responsibility from the County Councils for the administration of Accredited Hatchery schemes.

The 1939 report of the Poultry Technical Committee together with that of the Reorganisation Commission for Eggs and Poultry (Great Britain), which was issued in December 1935, and the provisional proposals drawn up under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, were being considered in connection with a comprehensive Poultry Industry Bill in the years immediately prior to the Second World War. The bill contained provisions for the control of the stock distributing industry and for setting up a Poultry Commission by whom these powers would have been exercised.

Poultry (Stock Improvement) Advisory Committee was created in January 1945, by the minister, to keep under review the position of the stock producing and distribution sections of the industry; to advise on existing measures designed to encourage the production of high quality breeding stock and to suggest from time to time any further steps which they would consider desirable should be taken to secure that end.

In March 1940, the minister set up the Domestic Food Producers' Council which was given wide terms of reference covering the war-time development of allotment and garden production and other forms of home food production. Soon after its establishment, the council appointed a Rabbits Committee, to consider and report on the desirability of a Government campaign in support of the keeping of tame rabbits, and a Poultry Committee to advise upon the merits and practicability of a national scheme for backyard poultry keeping.

The Domestic Poultry Keepers' Council was set up in September, 1940, to guide and assist domestic rabbit keepers and domestic poultry keeping in war-time with special reference to securing the effective use of household and garden waste and organising available supplies of purchased feeding stuffs. The Domestic Food Producers was reconstituted in August 1941 as the Allotments and Gardens Council.

The Stud Goat Scheme was started in May 1924 with the object of improving the productive quality of milch goats kept by smallholders and cottagers. The scheme was administered by the British Goat Society whose stud centres were liable to inspection and registration by officers of the Ministry of Agriculture. Application for the registration of stud goats was accepted both from members and non members of the Society. The scheme applied to England and Wales and was financially assisted by a grant from the Development Fund.