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 had made savings of £300,000,000. Food waste was identified as a problem in the UK as early as World War I. Combating food waste was one of the initial goals of the Women's Institutes (WI), set up in 1915, and remains a subject of their campaigns. Rationing was adopted during World War I, although it was voluntary, from February 1917; it was only between December 1917 and February 1918 that rationing began, in stages, to be made compulsory. As well, there is no evidence to suggest that by 1918 fines were imposed on either individuals or businesses for wasting food.