Because it is an island Great Britain relied heavily on foreign imports to feed herself. With her usual European trading partners either fighting Germany or in German hands there was no chance of significant quantities of food from that quarter. It either had to be homegrown or brought across the Atlantic.
The Ministry of Food encouraged the planting of kitchen gardens at home, in parks and on playing fields. It declared that "Food is a weapon of the War" and farming was actually a reserved occupation. As men were called up into active service, women were recruited into the Land Army, a uniformed, quasi military group.
The contributions of women to the war effort have never been accurately measured but there can no doubt that they were enormous. The girls of the Land Army and their counterparts at home farmed, gardened, canned and preserved enormous quantities of food, even to the point of harvesting wild roses for the hips, which have a very high vitamin C content.
In its context as a weapon, food was strictly rationed and controlled. Just as soldiers are taught to use their weapons efficiently civilians were taught to make better and more efficient use of the food supplies available. This instruction had two aims, one was to maximize the use of food supplies by the reduction of waste and, of course, make it possible to feed the army.
Despite the massive effort to increase self sufficiency in production of war materials, including food, large amounts of import material was needed. This included arms, ammunition, ships, raw materials and food. Some luxury items were imported as well but these were few and far between. The war effort, as always, took priority. Export was also essential . Without salable goods there would be no money to buy the needed supplies. The British Merchant Navy has always been a large, vital part of the economy but now it was a lifeline. Without the Merchant Navy, England would starve and the army would march no more.
The Battle of the Atlantic has been rather poetically described as the only battle that lasted from the first to the last day of the war. This is not entirely accurate but it is not wholly an exaggeration either. Certainly merchant and passenger ships were at risk from the very day war was declared and the shipping losses were staggeringly high. At one point ships were being sunk at a far greater rate than they could be replaced despite the best efforts of Canadian, American and British shipyards combined.
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