By the 1930s north Queensland had developed as one of Australia’s important food producing regions, especially for sugar, bananas, vegetables, meat and dairy products. The seasonal nature of agricultural production meant that the region was able to take advantage of the available farm labour that had softened the impact of the Great Depression among local growers. However, the outbreak of World War II saw many rural workers enlist in the services, causing shortages in production. Added to this, the internment of Italian farmers as Enemy Aliens meant produce supplies were barely adequate by 1942, and food was severely rationed. By 1943 the heavy demand from the mounting number of Allied personnel stationed in the region outstripped local production and supplementary supplies of fresh food had to be obtained from Brisbane and the southern states. Storage and distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables was based around partly-prefabricated ration stores designed in Townsville for the Australian Army in north Queensland. These stores were basically a timber-framed and iron-clad shed with a low-pitched gable roof, sitting on a concrete slab floor with large sliding doors at each end. The sheds were open for ventilation below the eaves and covered with bird-proof wire-mesh. Most were erected on railway sidings such as the early Golden Grove butter factory siding opened in 1914 about two kilometres north of Atherton, where four ration stores survive. Of these, several sheds have been moved and modified for use as workshops and storage, but two still occupy their wartime sites.