Battle for Land: Fascist Agricultural Policies

Land Reclamation

Fascism's second major initiative focused on land reclamation and improvement.
Expansion of Previous Initiatives:
- Previous governments initiated land drainage and irrigation.
- Mussolini expanded these schemes.
The Pontine Marshes:
- Located 50 km from Rome, easily accessible to foreign journalists.
- Drained and transformed into a network of farms owned by ex-servicemen.
Success and Limitations:
- Improved health and provided thousands of jobs during the depression.
- However, the actual amount of land reclaimed was limited.

Wage Cuts:
- Agricultural workers faced more severe wage cuts than industrial workers in the 1930s.
Emigration and Urbanization:
- Historically, emigration was a solution to rural poverty.
- 200,000 Italians emigrated to the USA annually in the early 1900s.
- 1920 US Immigration Policies:
  - The USA stopped most immigration, closing this option.
- Resulting urban migration:
  - Half a million people left the countryside in the 1920s-1930s.
  - Rome's population doubled between 1921 and 1941.
Mussolini's Views and Policies:
- Preferred rural lifestyle, aimed to ruralize Italy.
- Desired to cultivate a prosperous peasant class loyal to Fascism.
- Policies favored wealthy landowners over poor, landless peasants.
- Dropped a law to break up estates for fear of alienating landowner supporters.
Consequences:
- Economic underdevelopment and poverty persisted in the south.
- The disparity between the industrial north and rural south widened.
- Mussolini rarely visited poverty-stricken areas, such as Sicily, after 1924.
- Italy ranked 18th in Europe for daily calorie intake, highlighting rural poverty in the south.

Mussolini's agricultural policies were double-edged:
- Provided some improvements such as job creation and health benefits from land reclamation.
- Yet, failed to address deeper issues like wage disparity, emigration, and southern poverty.
- Ultimately benefited wealthy landowners more than the intended peasantry.