English Hop Growers Establish the Hops Marketing Board

In 1932, Parliament approved the Hops Marketing Scheme under the Agricultural Marketing Act 1931. The scheme organized English growers into a statutory marketing board with collective control over the sale of their crop, responding to unstable prices, imports, and the bargaining power of brewers and merchants. The board made hop supply a matter of agricultural organization rather than only brewery purchasing. It stabilized a regulated grower market for decades, although the monopoly structure remained contested and was ultimately dismantled in the context of European competition rules.