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Mussolini in Rome, 1927.
Mussolini in Rome, 1927. Photograph: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images
Mussolini in Rome, 1927. Photograph: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images

Mussolini awards himself agricultural prize – archive, 1928

This article is more than 4 years old

15 October, 1928: Encouraging Italy to be self-supporting, the Duce acknowledges farmers who have increased grain output


Rome, Sunday
In the Argentina Theatre at Rome this morning the Duce distributed prizes ranging from £20 to £200 to Italian farmers who had increased the grain output within the past year. Among the names of the £20 prize-winners was that of Benito Mussolini himself, who had tripled the output on his small experimental farm holding in his native village of Carpena, in the province of Forli.

Before the prize-giving Signor Mussolini made a speech which was broadcast over the whole of Italy, and in the course of which he said, amid loud cheers:– “The grain harvest of 1928 reached a total of 62,250,000 quintals, an increase of 10,000,000 quintals over last year’s yield. This is a great step in the ultimate victory of the battle of grain by which Italy will eventually be self-supporting.”

The Government, said the Duce, had placed agriculture as the first and preferred item in national economy. “Our victory was first of all won by the blood of the peasant, and it is the farming population that constitutes our real army.” This speech, following upon the law promulgated last week by which large landowners who will not improve the yield will have their estates expropriated by Government, forms part of the intensive “return to the land” policy on which Fascism has embarked.

The nine million peasants of Italy are now becoming the protégés of fascism, while formerly they were largely left to their own devices on the small holdings, which they rent largely from absentee landlords.

Henceforward they are to be helped by the Government land scheme for which an outlay of 7,000,000,000 lire, over a period of thirty years, is to be voted in the next Parliamentary session, while unemployment in the cities will be restricted, it is hoped, by a return to the land (expropriated land? many people are asking).

The whole movement is connected with the urge to increase among the population of Italy, for, as the Duce explained in an article recently published in “Gerarchia,” the increase will only occur in the prosperous country districts.

Close shots of Mussolini helping with haymaking. Source: YouTube.

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