Up to 1944, growers are able to keep the foodThe Hunger Wintersupply at a reasonable level, but from then on,In the last year of the war, food scarcity turns intoproduction quickly goes into a downward spiral.complete food shortage. Farmlands are depleting,fuel and electricity are no longer available andFood scarcity and restrictions lead marketlabour is scarce. The western Netherlands reliesgardeners to grow more and more for their ownon the Limburg coal mines to operate its heatingconsumption. Potatoes and pulses, but alsoand fuel the power plants. However, the south oftobacco, become the main crops to be cultivated.the Netherlands is liberated in the autumn of 1944,They also have to start producing their ownwhile the west is occupied until May 1945. As thechicken and pig feed. The fact that a largeAllied advance from the south stalls before theproportion of Dutch growers are switching andmajor rivers, supplies of the important coal are cutbecoming largely self-sufficient doesn’t benefitoff. As a result, the west of the country no longerthe national food supply.has any electricity or (coal) gas. Added to that,since the Allies have been advancing in France, theGermans have already started moving all possiblemeans of production to Germany. Due to theshortage of food, hundreds of thousands of citydwellers are roaming the countryside in searchof food. Everything and everyone is focused onfinding food for themselves and their families.Although there is hardly any ground combat inThe Westland – the Netherlands’ greenhousecentre – the greenhouses still suffer a lot ofdamage from the anti-aircraft guns of theGerman air defences. The thousands of shellsexploding in the air create a rain of shrapnelthat the fragile greenhouses cannot withstand.Moreover, for defence reasons the Germanshave flooded large parts of The Westland anddemolished many greenhouse farms to build theirfortifications. At the end of the war, it is found thatalmost one million square metres of glass was lostthrough acts of war.A sober version of the1943-1944 price list (above).The 1944-1945 version iseven typed.32Rijk Zwaan | Moving forward together
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