Agricultural History Review, Volume 46 Part 2 (1998), pp. 177–196

This article attempts to trace the response of Welsh fanning to the depressed conditions which prevailed, in the main, throughout the inter-war years. As the pre-existing system of land tenure, dominated by the large estate, gave way to freehold occupation, the new freeholders were obliged to come to terms with economic conditions not markedly different from those prevailing in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Whereas co-operative activity helped partially to cushion the blow, the principal response was a drastic reduction in arable farnaing with increasing concentration on dairying, for which market conditions became progressively more favourable. Even so, economic and agricultural depression came perilously close to damaging the fragile cultural and environmental framework of the country, and it was only with financial help and infi'astructural change after the Second World War that the farnfing conmmnity returned to some semblance of relative prosperity. 

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