SZ/NRTC - Natural Resources (Technical) Committee

SZ/NRTC

Series

Natural Resources (Technical) Committee

1950-1965

32 boxes

Natural resources
Productivity
United Kingdom. Natural Resources (Technical) Committee

The Natural Resources (Technical) Committee (NRTC) was constituted by the Lord President of the Council in November 1950 "to advise on technical problems of the development, use and conservation of natural resources [foreword to the Committee's first report, The Use of Towns' Waste in Agriculture, HMSO, 1954]. The Committee was the successor to the Committee on Industrial Productivity's Imports Substitution Panel, and like the Panel, was chaired by SZ (see Series SZ/CIP). The Committee did not produce a standard annual report but instead submitted reports on specific topics, the study of which was usually delegated to working parties. In the case of agriculture, however, a standing sub-committee, later to be a full committee, was established. This Sub-Committee was also chaired by SZ; its successor, the Committee on Agriculture, was chaired by Dr Frank Yates.

The majority of the NRTC's reports were unpublished, but four were published, all of them relating to agriculture. In addition to The Use of Towns' Waste in Agriculture, these were: Forestry, Agriculture and Marginal Land, HMSO, 1957; The Sheep Industry in Britain, HMSO, 1958; and Scale of Enterprise in Farming, HMSO, 1961.

The unpublished reports were: Sulphur (1951 and 1952); Mineral Development (1952); Pulp Production (1952); Rayon (1952); Expansion of Agriculture (1952-53); Alternatives to Flax (1954); Non-ferrous Metals. Supply and Demand (1954); Production of Pigmeat (1954); Long-term Demand for Steel (1955); Industrial Effluents (1958); and Irrigation (1961).

A bound set of published NRTC reports is available for consultation in the Archives Department, together with MS lists of the contents of the files.