Why we call the show WARAG

Our show is dedicated to the people who served on and around Westonzoyland Airfield during its operational era. But why Warag exactly, I hear you say? The land that the Airfield sits upon has had two significant historical uses, military and over a greater period of time, agricultural. Those two uses came together quite dramatically between 1939 and 1945 when the War Agricultural Executive Committee was set up and known colloquially as the "WARAG" ! The purpose of this committee was to oversee food production in Great Britain against the spectre of U boats cutting us off from our vast empire. The committee had the power to impose new cropping regimes and even to confiscate inefficient farms.

The "Warag" encouraged farmers to grow a wider variety of crops. No longer could we rely on the Empires "breadbasket", Canada to supply our wheat and we became only too aware of how far we were from the sugar plantations of the West Indies.

Here is Somerset, farmers faced particular challenges. With such varying types of land, which include moorland and the Somerset levels, arable production was difficult. Marginal land was turned over to wheat and barley rotated with potatoes and root crops for livestock. It is still possible to identify fields of moor ground that were turned over as "ploughground"during the conflict.

On Westonzoyland Airfield we saw military use and agriculture co exist. As the former "Weston Field" was turned over to war use the large areas of grass that cover the airfield were conserved as fodder for livestock, either by traditional haymaking or later via a grass dryer that made animal grass nuts.

Westcountry Warag is an opportunity for enthusiasts and the public alike to understand the airfields former land use and the lives of the people that lived and worked there.