Green Horizon

A “poor sheep walk” in the hills of Dolfor, Montgomeryshire, is transformed during WWII into a luxuriant pasture after being ploughed up, fertilized and re-seeded. Ion Trant, Welshpool farmer/film-maker and a member of the county’s War Agricultural Executive Committee, exhorts fellow farmers to aim for the green, green grass of Dolfor themselves. For the cost of about £11 an acre they too can increase the land available for food production.

From Dovea Farm, Tipperary, Ireland, Ion Trant studied agriculture in Canada and then worked at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in Aberystwyth where he met his future wife, Janet Owen of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, both employed on improving grasses for upland farms with George Stapledon. Ion was commandeered to assist with the war effort on the agricultural front during WWII but did also serve for a period in the RAF. The county-based WAECs were given extensive powers to increase productivity and their responsibilities included distribution of tractors, direction of any Women’s Land Army or POW labour, encouragement of land drainage and pest control, and completion of the National Farm Survey.