Given the overwhelmingly rural nature of Italian economy in the period, agriculture was vital to Fascist economic policies and propaganda. To strengthen the domestic Italian production of grain, the Fascist Government established in 1925 protectionist policies that ultimately failed (see the Battle for Grain). Historian Denis Mack Smith reports: "Success in this battle was [...] another illusory propaganda victory, won at the expense of the Italian economy in general, and consumers in particular. [...] Those who gained were the owners of the Latifundia, or "latifondi", and the propertied classes in general. [...] [Mussolini's] policy conferred a heavy subsidy on the Latifondisti".