Such major effects on the Italian landscape were, of course, results of the gigantic act of propaganda of the Battle of Wheat. This was not just empty fascist rhetoric, for we are dealing here with a concrete increased infrastructural presence of the state in the territory. In fact, one of the initiatives promoted by the campaign was the formation of associations and consortia of farmers financed by the state with the aim of producing and distributing new high-yield seeds.[54] By 1930, seven seed centers (in Sardinia, Sicily, Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata, Lazio, and Tuscany) had been set up by farmers’ syndicates. The connection with Strampelli’s Institute of Genetics couldn’t be more intimate: its local experiment stations, such as those in Foggia and on the island of Sardinia, were responsible for forming the local consortia. Selected farmers in each region were trusted with the task of reproducing the elite seeds under controlled conditions by the experiment station, after which the consortia would sell the certified seeds to farmers at controlled prices. Small landholders were given, gratis, a small quantity of selected seed under the obligation of cultivating it and getting rid of an equivalent amount of traditional landraces or, as an alternative, were paid back the difference between the price of new strains and traditional ones. From 1926 to 1930 about 100,000 quintals of selected seed were handed to small farmers through this scheme of “seed exchange,” which aimed at a large-scale replacement of traditional varieties in Italian fields by the breeders’ technoscientific artifacts.[55]
The targeting of small landholders didn’t change the fact that large farmers were the main beneficiaries of the system: they controlled the consortia, got extra income from reproducing selected seeds because they had been selected as model farmers, and had more capital with which to buy the fertilizers that revealed the good qualities of the new strains. Only if small farmers were given Strampelli’s varieties at no cost could they be persuaded to use the new seeds. To convince them, the campaign funded, in addition, no less than 30,000 demonstration fields scattered through every wheat-producing village in the country.[56] These were small properties of no more than a hectare (2½ acres), always close to public roads, for which small farmers received free seed and fertilizers for a couple of years. At key moments—seeding, fertilization, and harvest—the consortia invited the rest of the local farmers to observe the results, which were also publicized in the local press and by local priests.
For northern and central Italy, where demand for the new strains was greater, it was the Rieti Experiment Station that was in direct control of the entire circuit. Making use of its large multiplication fields, the Station sold seeds to the Association of Seed Reproducers of Rieti, which had been formed in 1926 by the fascist government to encourage the use of Strampelli’s varieties. Strampelli himself was the technical director of the association, and his National Institute of Genetics partially funded its formation. The members of the association, all farmers in the Rieti region, were responsible for reproducing seeds under strict supervision of personnel from the National Institute of Genetics, who controlled every step from sowing to threshing. The seeds were then collected, separated, and packed in the association’s building, a major facility with ten silos. Seed bags, identified with the stamps of the Association of Seed Reproducers and the National Institute of Genetics, were distributed among the millions of farmers of northern and central Italy. It is not easy to decide who mobilized whom: was it the fascist state that mobilized Strampelli for the success of its Battle of Wheat, or was it the geneticist who mobilized the state to put his Ardito into circulation?
And wheat circulation didn’t involve only farmers. Millers and bread consumers were also important. Indeed, when dealing with the science involved in the Battle of Wheat one is immediately struck by the amount of literature dedicated to the subject of rationalizing bread production, discussing in great detail the physical and chemical properties of flour or the design of bakers’ ovens.[57] Such material deserves, to be sure, an entire volume. Here it will be enough to mention that Strampelli’s strains, particularly Ardito, were objects of a controversy involving their quality for bread production.[58] In comparison with traditional Italian wheats, and with imported hard wheats such as Manitoba, Ardito was said to have worse dietary properties and to be ill adapted to bakers’ processes. And this was a time when bread consumers all over Europe increasingly valued whiter and lighter breads requiring specific properties of the wheat gluten, which justified the millers’ preference for high-strength flours.[59] The very same baking technology that transformed baking from a manual activity into a mechanized one also demanded stronger flours. Thus, while Strampelli conducted experiments to demonstrate the good technological properties of Ardito flours, the government decreed in 1931 that millers and bakers were required to use at least 95 percent Italian wheat in the production of bread and pasta. Strampelli’s National Institute of Genetics for Grain Cultivation, which had just moved into its new building in the outskirts of Rome, was granted a technological laboratory with a pilot facility for milling, baking, and pasta making, with the aim of demonstrating the superiority of national wheats.
While the experimental fields in Rieti or in Foggia enhanced the circulation of Strampelli’s hybrids on larger scales, the modest ovens and mills of the Technological Laboratory in Rome made them circulate among millers and consumers. Such instruments were crucial in guaranteeing that Italians were eating proper bread or pasta following autarkic principles. No true Italian was to use flour made from Manitoba wheat.[60] Again, it makes little sense to talk here about propaganda without substance, as too many scholars have referred to the Battle of Wheat, when such strong connections were being woven between millions of farmers, bakers, consumers, and the state by way of circulating geneticists’ artifacts.
54
57
To have an idea about the richness of such literature, see Arnaldo Luraschi,
60
This book does not give enough attention to consumption. To fill this gap, see Carol F. Helstosky, “Fascist food politics: Mussolini’s policy of alimentary sovereignty,”