Your Farm Has a War Job

T.B. Pickersgill and North-West Line Elevators Association - [1942?]

While food was always a key driver of Western Canada’s economy, the war meant that Prairie production had global consequences. This brochure, published by the North-West Line Elevators Association, encourages farmers to tailor their production to shifting British and Allied needs. “‘Farming as usual’, in Canada, is out for the duration” it proclaimed, and “it is hoped by the first of next year, the Government may be able to announce what acreages should be devoted to various crops in 1943.” By 1942, wheat production had already strategically decreased in favour of pork, eggs, and dairy products, but Canada’s flax production, crucial for the manufacture of linseed oil for camouflage paint, was still below demand. With a foreword by Minister of Agriculture James G. Gardinar, this book illustrates farmers’ and companies’ substantial redirection toward the war effort. Indeed, the war was all-encompassing: Pickersgill, whose brother was Mackenzie King’s executive assistant from 1937 to 1948, was soon asked to be Commissioner of Japanese Placement, a position he accepted with great reluctance (Sunahara 118).

With permission from Paterson GlobalFoods Inc.