The system which placed Italian prisoners of war to work and live on farms was a necessary strategy to keep ‘food on the Australian table and in the bellies of US and Australia military’. As our young Australians joined the military services, farmers were left without a farm labour workforce. The labour shortage situation was dire. War Cabinet documents convey this view. It was imperative to keep farms operational. With 18,000 Italian sitting idle in camps, allocating the Italians to farms, was a matter of supply and demand.