Combining war damages accounting and accounting for the natural world with social-organisational repercussions

Introductive frame

Human existence has always been inextricably linked to nature for the satisfaction of primary and secondary needs. Agriculture, including livestock breeding and mining, are classified as ‘primary’ sectors due to their chronological emergence in history, their relevance for human existence and their direct connections with nature. Unfortunately, these activities have currently exceeded the limits of sustainability and permanently altered the ecosystem. Due to the high exploitation of land, livestock farming and intensive agriculture, which are designed to satisfy an ever-increasing demand, climate and environmental changes are set to increase rapidly in the upcoming decades (Timma et al., 2020). The current agendas of governments around the world are taking these effects into account by setting policies in favour of sustainability and general well-being (UN, Agenda 2030). The labour aspect is equally important because of the regimes of labour exploitation around the world, starting with forms of slavery, latifundium and strict labour control in industrial production. According to some studies, these are features of capitalism and poor ethical choices. The race to exploit natural and human resources still reflects the intrinsic connection between man and nature. While progress has been made through international agreements, the proclamation of human and workers’ rights and the issuing of protocols for the protection of the ecosystem, wars and power games based on the acquisition and usage of scarce resources persist, especially in relation to energy and primary natural resources. Given the cyclical nature of these events, it seems appropriate to analyse the relationship between the damages caused by war, especially in the agriculture sector and the emergence of claims about social and organisational change.

War damages, accounting and social aspects

Jobe (2010), in his study on war and accounting, analyses American society and outlines the upheavals that war caused, especially in the period between WWI and WWII. He defines this period as ‘dynamic upheaval’ (Jobe, 2010: 3) He argues that, in this context of analysis, the accountants steered the society towards a recovery from the war, by showing how to cope with the increasing demands and complexities arising from the war effort. Therefore, the war paved the way for new opportunities in accounting: specialised consultancy, taxation, auditing, damage assessment and penalty enforcement. Different types of accounting tools are said to be related to man-made disasters such as wars. Accounting practice has substantially modified social practices related to death and remembrance (Chwastiak, 2008; Ezzamel and Bourn, 1990; Faust, 2006; Fein, 1993; Garazhian and Yazdi, 2008; Kakel, 2013; Nielsen et al., 2014; Shimizu and Fujimura, 2011; Yu, 2021; Zovko-Cihlar, 1993).

Chwastiak (2008) considers the practices related to disaster accounting, and more specifically to war, as ‘social accounting’ (Chwastiak, 2008: 575). She identifies in those forms of reporting a justification instrument, which goes beyond purely economic aspects to become an institutionalised practice. Among the possible accounting methods to be used for war costs, the following are proposed: accounting for accidental costs, the value of life, psychological hidden costs, opportunity costs, costs of war on victims and relatives, costs of death itself, costs related to destruction and disease, and more generally social costs. Jewell et al. (2018) focus on the ability of accounting to assess the position of the troops, identify the economic aspects related to the damages endured, identify and quantify whom and how much to compensate, and quantify the value of sick or dead people through the post-conflict compensation to surviving family members and the pensions for amputees or survivors. Jewell et al. (2018) clarify that there is a greater difficulty to account for the damages produced by the enemy with respect to one's own army. Therefore, accounting data may be provided with distortions and errors, often overestimating or underestimating the information. In any case, although there are different types of accounting related to war, the predominant one would be related to military losses and lists of names of soldiers killed in battle (a basic method for which the minimum of accounting technology is required – writing down what happened and reporting names and dates). Barry (2020) considers some natural disasters, such as epidemics, as strictly connected to wars, that is a kind of epidemic war, which often occur during actual wars and result in indirect losses. In addition to what has been expressed above, war accounting would inherently reflect social, historical, and institutional behaviours and attitudes, which characterise every war context (Chwastiak, 1998). Cost accounting (Fagerberg Jr., 1990; Quinn and Jackson, 2014) and economic and financial quantifications (Harrison, 2002; Lindgren, 2005) generally show an increase in costs and negative economic and financial consequences.

In analysing the changes in the Soviet accounting system during WWII, Djatej and Sarikas (2009) claim that the war triggered a change in accounting methods that better reflected the changes in the social environment.

Agriculture, accounting and social aspects

The current growing needs of the world's population tend to increase the demand for resources such as food, water, energy and raw materials. More specifically, the agricultural sector is said to be more connected to the environment and the natural world than other sectors. It has a profound impact on the economy, social aspects and climate change (Timma et al., 2020). Thus, agriculture is not only satisfying food needs but would also be integrated into the energy market through the production of ethanol (Calzadilla et al., 2011). Agriculture is currently involved in rapid climate change (Schlenker et al., 2005). Therefore, the connection between the natural world and social aspects through the agriculture sector would generate heated debates on the issue of climate change. For the purposes of this study, the authors tend to look at the literature gap regarding agriculture and the contribution of accounting in this sector. Accounting, as a technology (Gomes et al., 2014; Horvat and Korošec, 2015), has been scarcely investigated within the agricultural world, although accounting information, whether financial or otherwise, would play a key role in decision-making and reporting in agriculture. Features of accounting in agriculture should take into account: the total uncontrollability of agricultural production; characteristics of the land such as the distance from its ownership and its size and quality; the difficulty in assessing assets and sunk costs; seasonality; and marginal remuneration (Poppe, 1991). It is therefore evident that, for farmers, the use of the accounting tool is almost marginal, although the establishment of agriculture in the neolithic period was accompanied by the rise of the first archaic accounting methods. These made use of stones to note the main information related to production (Giraudeau, 2017).

As identified in the literature, the prevailing adoption of accounting systems related to agriculture appears to be tied to cost accounting, as it would be more useful for farmers to specifically designate the costs of production of each product unit separately, and then the cost of the final product (Sharma, 2012).

In more recent times, prevailing literature has focused on the analysis and study of Farm Management Survey systems, restricting the research activity to England and Wales. This process began in 1936 and has continued, under the name Farm Business Survey, to the present day. The prevailing aim of such approaches is to produce an assessment of income levels in the agricultural sector (Brassley et al., 2013). Some authors have focused on building models for water consumption in agriculture (Calzadilla et al., 2011). Other studies focus on proposing growth models based on accounting for agricultural production (Fuglie, 2015). Currently, strategic management accounting in agriculture focuses on the study of the environment, both internal and external, through the collection of data, their subsequent processing, and the identification of managerial strategies based on prior planning, execution and monitoring/evaluation (Migliavacca et al., 2018). The importance of these methodological aspects can be seen in the development of accounting in agriculture (Alborov et al., 2017). Authors such as Adelman and Robinson (1986) concentrate their efforts in the United States (1982), on the construction of a social accounting matrix capable of verifying the impact of different exogenous shocks on agriculture. As far as the social aspects are concerned, accounting for the natural (agricultural) world would be of fundamental importance in identifying and quantifying the impacts of agriculture on the environment. In fact, as it emerges from a survey carried out by Hrubovcak et al. (2000), it would be essential to focus on the agricultural sector because it would reflect, in a significant way, the impacts on natural resources and the environment. Currently, 50 per cent of these impacts would be related to the exploitation of the soil, 80 per cent to the use of water resources, 25 per cent to the deterioration of rivers and 19 per cent to lakes, with 18 per cent of the length of rivers affected by pollution from toxic substances used for production. According to Jack (2005), WWII led to the development and adoption of simplified management accounting practices in U.K. agriculture. This is also due to the lack of accounting education and the resulting reduced accounting knowledge in the agricultural sector.

Accounting as a social practice and its role in social and organisational change

Several studies focus attention on organisational change and its accounting links, referred to as neo-institutionalism. Carruthers (1995) declares that the new institutional view has developed in the ambit of organisation theory with great consideration of the accounting perspective. In this sense, it carries ambiguities. Covaleski et al. (1996) recognise the crucial role of sociological variables as controlling activities and coordination perspectives in socially organised aggregations. Through this paradigm it would be possible to investigate aspects of functioning by accounting procedures, stressing the sociological dimension of the practice. In addition, Di Maggio (1988), Di Maggio and Powell (1983) Hopwood (1983; 1990; 1994) and Powell and Di Maggio (1991) consider institutional patterns in the organisational dimension. Especially Hopwood (1976; 1978; 1983; 1990; 1994; 1990) investigates and poses attention to the existing relations among accounting, human behaviour, organisational change and its operational contexts. Powell and Bromley (2015) and Powell and Di Maggio (1991) analyse organisational complexity and the possibility to shape the inherent relations under the institutional interpretative paradigm. Lounsbury (2008) highlights the new ways of institutionalism. More specific contributions in this direction are given by Modell (2009, 2022) who considers aspects of institutional research in the public sector and accounting sphere of attribution. Oliver (1991) reserves attention to the more human aspects of the institutionalist paradigm, referring to the strategic responses against external pressures. Potter (2005) reflects the core of the interpretation given by the authors to accounting as an institutional practice; Ribeiro and Scapens (2006) investigate the institutional theories related to evolution and change in accounting and, in addition, Riccaboni et al. (2006). Previously Tolbert and Zucker (1983), Townley (1993) and Zucker (1987) reflected on the interconnection existing between accounting and organisation theory, involving declinations as power relations. Other interesting and crucial contributions to the research proposed are given by Scott (1987, 2013) recognising evolutionary steps of institutionalism by using a metaphor of movement from childhood to adolescence. However, the instance of change still seems to be far from a comprehensive resolution. This accounting literature attempts to enhance the connections between accounting and organisational practice (Quinn and Jackson, 2014). Change processes in the neo-institutional framework occur over longer periods of time and are conducive to change in the sphere of individual action (Burns and Scapens, 2000).

In this respect, it is important to consider the perspective of Pettigrew (1979, 1985, 1990, 1997) on the dimensions of organisational change: (a) content; (b1) internal and (b2) external processes. In this case study, the content would be related to the claims of the segment of the population (hemp growers) that is requiring change through agricultural reform. In terms of processes, they refer to all those actions, reactions and interactions of the party/ies involved in the attempt to shift from a past or present condition to a prospective better one. In this case study, the population of hemp growers of the province of Caserta (Campania region, Italy) is impacted by two processes: (b1) the external ones, which include the devastation caused by the bombing and military occupation of the hemp warehouses; (b2) the internal ones, which include riots and rallies aimed at demanding agrarian reforms to guarantee a better standard of living for the families of the hemp-growers. In both processes, the accounting tool is present, on the one hand (b1) for the reporting of war damages and subsequent compensation claims, on the other hand (b2) in the reporting of costs for hemp production. The two processes (b1–b2) impacting the population's claims (content-a) are considered determinants of the social and organisational change introduced by the agrarian reforms in 1950. In turn, this is interpreted as the institutionalisation of the role of accounting as a factor of change. In that sense, accounting is a social practice inextricably linked to the case under analysis (Carnegie et al., 2020; Riccaboni et al., 2006). The following Figure 2 shows graphically these concepts.

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Figure 2.

Accounting as a determinant of social and organisational change of hemp growers in the Caserta province, post-WWII. Source: Authors’ elaboration from Pettigrew (1979, 1985, 1990, 1997).

Over the years, accounting has acquired an increasingly broader cultural significance, not only due to its growing importance for representing the economic and financial situation but also because of the meanings attributed to accounting representations. In fact, the range of interpretations of accounting has widened the contexts in which it is used (Hopwood, 1990).

Accounting is not only a mere technical tool for economic and financial control (Chandler and Daems, 1979; Hopwood, 1976), but an instrument that produces a series of consequences, including social and institutional ones, and therefore leads to a change or to a creation of a new organisational order in its context of reference (Dent, 1991). Accounting cannot be regarded as a neutral subject that simply and objectively reports economic events in books and records (Hopwood, 1990; Kloot, 1997). On the contrary, it is able to influence the cultural dimension (Catturi, 1992) of an organisation as Hopwood (1983: 300) suggests: ‘accounting … has the power to shape and influence organisational life on its own accord’. Accounting has been defined as a social practice (Burchell et al., 1980; Miller and Napier, 1993) with a social role (Walker, 2016), such as promoting economic and social change. Accounting can generate change by facilitating an understanding of the meaning of contextual events.

According to Pierotti et al. (2020), accounting scholars increasingly see accounting as a social practice rather than merely a technical tool (Burchell et al., 1980; Potter, 2005).

In the present study, the authors follow this interpretation of accounting. By using the model of Acikgoz et al. (2022), the authors consider the role of accounting in preempting reforms, such as the 1950 agrarian reform. This study shows how accounting (understood as a system of measurement) combines reporting requirements (although not compulsory) with political objectives of social welfare, generating awareness and knowledge about the conditions of hemp growers, and thus leading to the reform of the agricultural system. The authors believe that accounting helped to rationalise the agricultural socio-economic issues that led to riots and rallies for reform in the period considered. As suggested by Radcliffe et al. (2017: 45), ‘accounting technologies become essential to governmental intervention’, which concerns the activities and life of hemp growers in this case study. Accounting information provides knowledge to the political apparatuses and therefore enables them to perform their functions and to better govern (Rose, 1996). As a consequence, the authors assume that accounting information about the hemp growers in the Caserta province post-WWII contributed to state intervention.

According to Miller (1994: 28) accounting can be interpreted in three ways: –

as technology, accounting is a tool able to to transform raw data into useful information for governmental decision-making processes;

The analysis carried out in this article consists in studying the accounting records, considering them as ‘the historical voice of wider social events’ (Pierotti et al., 2020: 620) that contributed to a better awareness of the state of the social context and finally led to agrarian reform post-WWII.

WWII and damages in the province of Caserta

Even though the bombing of Italian cities began as early as 11 June 1940, about 24 hours after the Italian declaration of war on France and the United Kingdom, the destruction continued throughout the war. In the five years between the start of the war (1940) and its end (1945), almost every Italian city was bombed. The industrial centres of the north, such as Genoa, Milan and Turin suffered more than 50 attacks; the port cities of the south, such as Messina and Naples, more than 100 attacks. Milan recorded more than 2,000 civilian victims; Naples, in 1943, lost almost 6,000 inhabitants to the bombs (Baldoli, 2010; Battaglia, 1966). Anglo-American troops landed in Sicily in July 1943 and in Salerno, south of Naples in September 1943, and between 1943 and 1944, they were stationed near Naples. In 1943, Italian opposition to fascism was growing, and socio-economic difficulties and living conditions resulting from occupation and bombing led the King of Italy to dismiss Mussolini in July and for the new Italian government to open negotiations with the Allies.

The investigation of this study allows us to draw a link between the effects of WWII in the Campania region (Southern Italy) and the shape of institutions, economy and society at the time (Chianese, 1994). This link would provide the possibility to evaluate the relationship between the claims of hemp growers (farmers’ population) about war damages, the contemporary riots and rallies to better their working and life conditions and an effective change of the social and organisational system. Bombings, occupation and destruction in the period of WWII affected the way territory and space were perceived (Schwarz, 2003). Bedin (2015) suggests that photos, war reports and accounts, and relics buried in the abandoned trenches, would become pieces of a puzzle to reconstruct that past as truthfully as possible.

Figure 3 represents the damage caused to the Capua warehouse (in the province of Caserta): the warehouse was completely destroyed, thus in the photo, there are only dust and ruins in front of another building. Figure 4 contains the details of the 1949 expert's report on the damage to the Capua warehouse: ‘The warehouse was completely destroyed by aerial bombardment in August 1943. The cost estimate of the damage drawn up from this report is 18,600,000.00 lire’. ²

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Figure 3.

Capua warehouse destroyed by the bombing. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

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Figure 4.

Expert's report about damage assessment of Capua warehouse, destroyed by the bombing. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Figure 5 depicts the Marcianise (in the province of Caserta) hemp mill and warehouse looted during the military occupation on 4 October 1943.

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Figure 5.

Marcianise hemp mill and warehouse looted on 4th October 1943. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

The following Figure 6 shows the claim for war damages to the Marcianise hemp mill and warehouse looted on 4th October 1943. The second part of the document in Figure 6 translates as follows (authors’ translation):

Ownership of this real estate: Textile Fibres Agency

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Figure 6.

Request for compensation for war damages to the Marcianise hemp warehouse looted on 4th October 1943. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Figure 7 shows the detailed statement of the damages caused to the warehouse in Marcianise looted on 4th October 1943, following public investigation and witnesses’ interviews. The document was signed on 5th May 1961:

When questioned separately, they (witnesses) shared the following declaration: we saw and can certify that the building in Marcianise (location), used as a hemp warehouse, was requisitioned by the Allied troops from 5th December 1943 to 14th February 1946 and used as a depot and military quarter. During this period of occupation, damages were made for an amount of around Lire 3,000,000 …. (Authors’ translation)

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Figure 7.

Statement of damages caused to the warehouse in Marcianise. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Figure 8 illustrates a confidential military document about the occupation of the Marcianise warehouse from 5th December 1943 to 14th February 1946, in which the same damages reported in Figure 7 are accurately described.

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Figure 8.

Confidential militaru document about the occupation of the Marcianise warehouse 5th December 1943 - 14th February 1946 and the damages occurred.

The documents (a), (b), and (c) shown in Figure 9 are experts’ 1949 reports on the damage caused to the hemp warehouse in Caserta by aerial bombardment in August–September 1943.

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Figure 9.

Documents (a), (b) and (c) of appraisal (1st May 1949) of the damages caused to the Caserta hemp warehouse by aerial bombardment occurred in August–September 1943. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Document (a) states the following:

The Caserta warehouse, owned by the ‘Ente’ (formerly the General Warehouse of the province of Terra di Lavoro), was occupied (by) a partial requisition as a depot for German naval material and was almost completely destroyed by aerial bombardment on the 21st, 27th August and 1st September 1943. (Authors’ translation)

The appraisal description (document (a)) and the total sum of the works to be carried out (document (c)) are calculated following the method illustrated in document (b) for the demolition and reconstruction. The final value of Lire 35,000,000 (document (c)) is calculated as follows: ‘28,500,000 Lire plus 10 per cent for contingencies/unexpected events (2,850,000 Lire) plus engineering fees to be paid by the ‘Ente’ (650,000 Lire) equal to 35,000,000 Lire’. (Authors’ translation)

Figure 10 shows the official document of the Civil Engineers of Caserta certifying the total destruction of the annexe to the hemp warehouse in Caserta following aerial bombardment: ‘The undersigned chief engineer certifies that the complex of buildings (annexe) forming part of the hemp warehouse in Caserta, Viale Ellittico, was completely destroyed by the bombing on 23rd August 1943’. (Authors’ translation)

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Figure 10.

18th October 1949 certification of the civil engineers of Caserta about the total destruction of the annexe to the Caserta hemp warehouse, following aerial bombardment on 23rd August 1943. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Figure 11 shows the remains of the hemp warehouse of Caserta, following the aerial bombardment on 23rd August 1943.

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Figure 11.

Remains of the hemp warehouse of Caserta, following the aerial bombardment on 23rd August 1943. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Specific accounting documentation related to the war damages to hemp warehouses in the Caserta province is shown in Figure 12. This accounting documentation identifies the damage by geographic area (specific location in the province of Caserta) (columns a and b); the nature of the damaged or destroyed properties (columns c); the tax office where the claim for compensation was filed (column d); the date of filing (column e); the code of the claim (column f); the value of the damage reported (column g); and value of the damage per clusters of location (h).

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Figure 12.

Statement of accounts showing war damages to hemp warehouses in the province of Caserta, by location. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Amministrazione Provinciale Terra di Lavoro.

Hemp, agricultural cost accounting and social condition of hemp growers in the Caserta province

Hemp was a popular plantation in the province of Caserta in the period analysed. Capasso (2001) points out that it is not possible to identify the precise country of origin of hemp, but this plant had been known for a long time. A useful indication of where hemp was first introduced can be traced back to the area spread between the lower Danube and northern China. In this vast area, hemp grew almost spontaneously. In Italy, however, in the lower Po Valley and later in Piedmont, hemp was introduced by the Romans.

According to the data published by the General Directorate of Agriculture (Annali di Statistica, 1889), the ploughed surface of the province of Caserta in 1889 was 435,321 hectares, ³ meaning 80.44 per cent of the available land. Wheat was the largest crop, followed by maize and cereals. Grapes and olives orchards were also fairly well developed as were citrus fruits cultivations, especially in the Caserta and Gaeta locations. The cultivation of hemp (together with lime and tow) was particularly important, with an average annual production of 108,212 quintals ⁴ (10,821 ton ⁵ ). In the agricultural sector, hemp became popular to replace the cultivation of madder, which had become unprofitable.

In the Campania region, hemp cultivation was one of the agricultural activities that occupied most of the cultivated land and rural population for centuries (Macry, 1990), until its regression in the last decades of the twentieth century. This type of crop was completely abandoned after 1975 (Casoria and Scognamiglio, 2006).

In the close Neapolitan province of the Campania region, more precisely in the Atellana area, hemp cultivation and yarn-making were considered typical local activities until the 1950s (Capasso, 2001).

Hemp cultivation was already widespread in the Caserta and Neapolitan provinces during the Roman Empire. From the seventeenth century onwards, it came to occupy ever larger portions of land, such as the southern part of the provinces of Caserta and Naples, including the slopes of the Vesuvius volcano (Canino, 1981). Bevilacqua (1992) observes that contrary to what occurred in Europe, in Italy and in the Mediterranean area the functional coordination of residential settlements with respect to the type of fields is weak. This discrepancy, in evaluating the life condition of hemp growers in the agricultural sector, is crucial in view of the research proposition, representing the living difficulties of these kinds of workers.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, hemp farming was covering more than 50,000 hectares, meaning 60 per cent of the available land in the province of Caserta, until the 1960s (Di Vilio, 2012).

After the war ‘agricultural production … was absolutely insufficient to meet the minimum needs of the population’ (State Archive of Caserta – Capobianco Giuseppe Archive Folder n. 1218: Barbieri, 1947, authors’ translation).

The summary of historical statistics from 1861 to 2010 (ISTAT, 2011) shows a radical decline in terms of thousands of quintals of hemp produced from 1939 (1200 quintals or 120 tons) to 1945 (401 quintals or 40.1 tons).

It is impossible to describe the misery in which the peasants of the province of Caserta live. Their life is less than a human life, it can be considered as an existence in a primitive and barbaric status … Fascism left these populations at the mercy of the landowners, greedy exploiters … (State Archive of Caserta– Capobianco Giuseppe Archive Folder n.1218: Vergani, 1946, authors’ translation)

Figure 13 is the original document containing the production costs (cultivation) of hemp for the year 1945.

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Figure 13.

Cost-accounting document detailing the costs of hemp production in 1945. Source: Photograph from State Archive of Caserta, Archivio Capobianco Giuseppe No. 1745–1755, Folder n. 1218 (Vergani, 1946).

From Figure 13, the minimum cost for the production of one bushel (moggio ⁶ ) of hemp is Lire 41,750. It should be considered that:

the average production is around 6 bundles (fasci ⁷ ) of hemp (6 × 71kg = 426 kg), which can be sold at the favourable price of 8000 Lire per quintal, this yields the little revenue amount of 34,080 lire. … even in the case of good average production, the revenues are 34,080 Lire, while the costs, calculated on the basis of the lowest farmers’ wages, are 41,750 Lire. … Therefore, the farmer's pay, which was set at 300 Lire for 10 h, must be reduced even further, and it becomes a starvation wage. (Folder n. 1218: Vergani, 1946, authors’ translation)

Post-WWII agrarian reform (1950)

The authors believe that war, hemp cultivation and the history of the Caserta province are intrinsically linked by the leitmotif of accounting. Farms are defined as the organisation of resources, such as land, non-land capital (equipment) and human capital for agricultural production (Silverman, 1968). The documentary evidence used by the authors outlines the dire social conditions of the period analysed, in particular in the rural territory, and indicates the strong repercussions of WWII on the socioeconomic and organisational fabric of the Southern Italy rural population.

A typical example of the disastrous situation of the farmers in this province [Caserta] is that of the hemp growers. The majority of these farmers are small and medium-sized tenants who pay their rent in kind, namely two and a half bundles of hemp per bushel of land. The payment of the estaglio (rent) has to be made to landowners independently from production trends. During the 1945 harvest, some farmers were not able to collect enough revenue to pay the rent as a result of the drought and the war. (State Archive of Caserta, Archivio Capobianco Giuseppe No. 1745–1755, Folder n. 1218: Vergani, 1946, authors’ translation)

In addition, landowners enjoyed further ‘benefits’. As described by Vergani (1946: 3, authors’ translation):

After hunger and destitution, the land-worker has to suffer the mockery. He must hand over to the landowner the so-called ‘benefits’ of barbaric and feudal memory. The tenant farmer of this ‘Terra di Lavoro’ has to deliver every year and for each bushel of land the following: one capon; one chicken; one hen; 10–20 eggs and other services: wood, transport, cleaning of the master's house, gardening work, …

There is a strong link between agricultural organisations, on the one hand, and social structure and values, on the other hand (Silverman, 1968). Unfortunately, the transcription and translation of the original historical documents demonstrate that the social claims of the hemp growers of the Caserta province through various agitations were not accepted in the first instance by the landowners. It would take a few years (1950) for the agrarian reforms to occur and improve the conditions of the regions of southern Italy (Vanzetti and Meissner, 1953).

As identified by McEntire (1970), the more far-reaching agrarian reform (1950) was the result of balancing peasant demands, land redistribution and agricultural technological progress. The main target of the reform was the population of land workers and farmers who were the poorest social classes.

Towards the end of the 1950s, the dire situation of the ‘Mezzogiorno’ (southern Italy), including its prevailing rural aspect, began to be considered and analysed in a more holistic way, also from the perspective of cultural and social anthropology (Mariuzzo, 2013).

The problems related to agriculture in Italy were at the basis of the peasant revolts at the end of WWII until the mid-1950s. Only post-WWII was a series of agricultural reforms to modernise the country in this productive sector implemented.