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The war years saw a drastically reduced workforce for Lincolnshire’s farms. Conscription took many men off the land.

The 1915 Sleaford Agricultural Census gives an insight into the struggle some farmers had. Under the heading Casual Labourers many responded - none to be had.

More farms increasingly relied on women, which led to the creation of the Women’s Land Army in 1917. By the end of that year there were over a quarter of a million women working as farm labourers.

Irish gangs continued to work in Lincolnshire’s fields and children were released from school to help.

It wasn’t only men who left our farms to go to war – horses were also needed on the front line. This was a time when mechanisation had not taken off fully and the numbers of tractors in Lincolnshire were few.

Wheat and oat prices were guaranteed with the introduction of the Corn Production Act of 1915. The rise in potato prices during wartime encouraged growers to increase their yields. By the end of the war thousands of acres of pasture land had been converted to crop growing.

Location: The Fens, Lincolnshire NG34
Image: A ‘potato gang’ (1914), courtesy of Lincolnshire Archives

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