Agriculture in the United Kingdom fund the purchase as a mortgage. The Council could not refuse without the Minister of Agriculture's permission. In 1919 the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food were merged to form the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, which later became the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF). MAFF was in turn the predecessor of DEFRA. Before the Second World War started, Britain imported 55 million tons of food a year. By the end of 1939, this had dropped to 12 million, and food rationing was introduced at the start of 1940. It did not completely end until July
Rationing in Cuba palm fronds. It was estimated in the early 2000s that the rationing covered between one third and one half of a family's needs. President Raul Castro moved to eliminate many products from the rationing system, including potatoes and peas. The "libreta" is not the only means of acquiring goods available to a Cuban citizen, as many of these and other products are freely available on the "mercado libre" (free market) and "mercado paralelo" (parallel market), and in the numerous supermarkets and stores that sell goods in convertible pesos. (Such stores were originally set up taking United States Dollars and were