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
Food waste in the United Kingdom Many of the methods suggested by current campaigns to prevent food waste have taken inspiration from those of World War II. Despite this, it remains debatable whether the waste campaigns and rationing, during and post-WWII, achieved any long-term change in people's attitudes towards waste; WRAP's report on domestic household waste found older people to waste as much avoidable waste as younger people. Further, as early as 1980, only twenty-five years after rationing was fully abolished, a journal article published that year found significant levels of waste at home, in restaurants and in sectors of the food industry. However, the rising