A small crowded country might have to bring in a lot of food. Same thing with industrial and consumer goods. Sounds like a formula for staying poor. Yet somehow Denmark is prosperous. Maybe they considered carefully how to make the best of what they had. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
In the title, I hinted that the stamp is misleading with regard to agriculture. I don’t think the stamp designers meant it to be. They were told to put together a set of stamps showing off modern agriculture and did so. It is hard to make out what is going on with this stamp thanks to typically poor period Scandinavian printing, but it is showing a harvester combine as was used in wheat cultivation. They have the potential to look impressive and modern on a stamp, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/19/nicaragua-1976-somoza-will-bleed-the-peasants-dry-and-then-automate-their-function/ , but have nothing to do with what was getting Denmark ahead. It is a better stamp that tells the real story.
Todays stamp is issue A79, a 30 Ore stamp issued by Denmark on April 28th, 1960. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Agriculture up to the nineteenth century was not particularly successful. There was wheat and cereals to go with some raising of pigs. As the farms were smaller, costs were higher. Denmark was not very fertile as land to the west tended to be quite sandy and that in the east had a great deal of clay. Much money was expended in government programs adding topsoil that would allow for more fertility.
This was not enough as there was not enough land for the large, productive wheat farms that exist in the American midsection, Canada, Australia, and perhaps in old Soviet fantasies, the Ukraine. Those are where the combine harvesters shine.
What if though you could use what land you have to do a few things agriculturally mainly for export and that revenue could then be enough to import the more land intensive basic foodstuffs. There was an excess demand for dairy in the UK that could be satisfied by dairy farms on Jutland. Zealand is low lying and gets a healthy dose of rainfall. This is condusive to fast growing cereals. The pig raising is still a big part of things. This small crowded country manages not to have an agricultural trade deficit. Not what one might expect.
Well my drink is empty and I have a sudden desire to have some crackers with ham and cheese with the next round. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.