They were inexperienced in matters agricultural: many had never seen a cow before and to cap it all they were women, but at a time of crisis they stepped in to fill the labour gap on Britain's farms. If the scheme seemed peculiar to the farmers under whom they toiled in fields and dairies, more than half a century later, with British agriculture facing a labour shortage and high food prices, the idea no longers seems outlandish.

As representatives of the Women's Land Army finally received official recognition for their efforts yesterday there were calls for the ethos behind the scheme to be revived.

Richard Hirst, the chairman of the National Farmers' Union, told The Times: “A lot of horticultural business still involves manual labour and there is now a shortage. I think the idea behind the Land Army is something we may have to look further at.”

Fifty surviving members of the Land Army and the Women's Timber Corps arrived in Downing Street to receive the badge of honour for their wartime efforts. They met Gordon Brown, who has appealed recently to British householders to stop wasting food.

Times Archive, 1939: A Women's Land Army

In the event of war, work on the land would be a form of national service of great importance to the country

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Meanwhile, allotments are oversubscribed and a trend to grow fruit and vegetables has swept the country, along with a desire to eat organic produce.

Dilys Bullock, 83, one of the Land Girls who attended Downing Street, said: “It was all organic in those days. Nobody could get pesticides, but they didn't charge you extra for it.”

The women in Downing Street were the first of 30,000 women who will receive the badge this year - the remnant of a force of 80,000 women who laboured in the countryside during the Second World War.

Mary Vincent, 89, from Liverpool, had been working in a textiles factory, producing suits for wounded soldiers. She volunteered for the Land Army after one of her brothers was killed in the bombing of Liverpool. “I didn't know a cow from a bull,” she said.

She soon found herself in charge of a cart horse ploughing a field in the village of Sefton, however.

“The labourer I was working with said, 'Just one more row, Mary',” she said. “I turned the horse around and it sent me flying across the field. The labourer said, 'He does that because he knows it's teatime'. After that I asked to work in the dairy.”

As well as learning milking she learnt to drive and delivered milk. “I think some young people now would benefit from the experience,” she said. “It might do some of them some good.”

After the war the Government started the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme to ensure that a steady flow of students supplied farms with seasonal labour. Among the early intake was Lord Rooker, now a minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The British students have since been replaced by their counterparts from Eastern Europe but with employment prospects and wages improving in EU accession countries, growers have complained of a shortage. Mr Hirst and British Summer Fruits, a growers' organisation, have argued for an increase in the quota of students from non-EU countries who are allowed to come to Britain each year as fruit pickers.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We have consistently said that people who are unemployed in this country need to take these jobs.”

Laurence Olins, the chairman of British Summer Fruits, doubted whether British students or the long-term unemployed had the necessary commitment to work long, back-breaking shifts in the fruit fields.

Mrs Bullock concurred. Modern teenagers were “too frivolous”, she said. “Unless they changed radically, they'd be hopeless.”

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