TheRural Reconstruction Association (RRA) was a Britishagricultural reform movement established in 1926 withMontague Fordham as its Council Secretary, a post he held for 20 years.[1]
Influenced by the ideas ofguild socialism, the RRA sought for a time the creation of a National Agricultural Guild with land ownership held by land councils who would operate as local sections of the Guild.[2] Its main consistent aims however were to reviveagriculture and to decentralise the population of Britain.[1] It sought to standardise prices and produce grading, regulate imports and encourage more of a balance between agriculture and industry which, it argued, would benefit both sectors by ending over-reliance on manufacturing.[1] As such, theAgricultural Marketing Act 1931,Wheat Act 1932 andAgricultural Marketing Act 1933, all of which moved towardsprotectionism in agriculture, were seen by the RRA as a vindication of their arguments.[1]
Their 1936 documentThe Revival of Agriculture attacked modern economics whilst praising what they saw as the more realistic approach of Elizabethan times, where financiers were servants of producers rather than masters. They argued that this system could be returned by controlling imports and so allowing domestic agricultural produce to reach a higher value. This would mean that banks would be more prepared to advance loans to farmers and would lead to the creation of a system of agricultural credit banks.[3] A revived agricultural sector was also presented as being central to national well-being as it would encourage fresh organic produce.[4]
The group grew close to theEconomic Reform Club and Institute (ECRI) in the 1940s[5] and with the ECRI it produced, between 1944 and 1956, a journal dedicated to the reform of therural economy edited byJorian Jenks.[2] Jenks'Rural Economy journal proved the focal point forfascist sympathies within the movement as Jenks, a former member of theBritish Union of Fascists, was close to theUnion Movement.[6]
The group enjoyed the support of some leading British figures as SirGeorge Stapledon andLord Lymington were amongst the members of its board[2] whilstLord O'Hagan served as President of the movement for a time.[7]
