Elements for a history of Portuguese fascism in the fields - the «Wheat Campaign»: 1928-1938 (I)

Abstract

As a contribution to the history of Portuguese fascism in the fields, one studies in this article the  antecedents and the economic aspects of the so-called «Wheat Campaign», that took place between 1928 and 1938. In a following article, its social, political and ideological aspects will be analysed. The insufficiency of cereal production to fill the consumption needs has been a constant factor in Portuguese agricultural history. But, up to the nineteenth century, there has been no systematic policy in order to increase that production. Only after the liberal revolution of 1820, it was planned, for the first time, a protectionist policy concerning wheat. Divergent interests from different fractions of the rulling classes made, nevertheless, oscillate the policy between protctionism and free trade - till the triumph of the former in 1899, through a law, considered as «law of wealth» by landowners ond as «law of hunger» by the lower classes. The «Wheat Campaign» was the restoration of that protectionism, accompanied by some measures (concession of subsidies and credits) intended to promote the production increase and the national self-sufficiency in this domain. It was taken profit of a real situation of unequilibrium in the balance of payments partially caused by the import of wheat, in order to legitimate the establishment of protectionism. Traditionally, the production costs of wheat where very high. This is the reason why the production could grow only as a result from a global rationalization in agriculture or through big financial aids. It was the latter to be followed during the «Wheat Campaign». Among the granted aids, the price subsidy had the greatest repercussion. But it did not favoured every producer equally: in fact, it reverted on behalf of the big producers in the south. Nevertheless, the main beneficiaries, and the economic point of view, of the «Wheat Campaign» were not exactly the latifundia-owners and capitalist tenants in the south but above all on one side, the big industrial-commercial capital out of the agricultural activity and, on the other side, the local usury, being possible for the latter to be mixed with the rural and latifundia-owning grande-bourgeoisie.