Scattered throughout regional and country Victoria, the ubiquitous concrete wheat silo remains an omnipresent reminder of a key period in the state’s history. It was a time when the rapid industrialisation of rural production was confronted by the demands and consequences of World War II. With the increasing volume of wheat production from the turn of the century, the Victorian Grain Elevators Board was established in 1935 to address the subsequent limitations in bulk handling and storage. Their plan was to create a network of 160 concrete silos sited along existing railway lines to be connected to the shipping terminal at Geelong. The majority of them were constructed under the Victorian Silo Scheme between 1938 and 1941. Yet by the outbreak of World War II, Australia experienced a great surplus of wheat that could not be exported due to the shortage of ships between Australia and England. It required long-term storage solutions. Moreover, wartimematerial and labour restrictions severely affected the progress of construction on the silos. In 1941, the storage deficit became an emergency with the UK importing its grain from across the Atlantic. Following the end of the war in 1945, with the return of thousands of ex-service men and influx of mass migration, the resumption of agricultural production increased on a scale not seen before. Rapid advances in grain production and handling allowed Australian farmers to harvest vast quantities of wheat for the growing demand at home and export markets across the world. The concrete silos, where farming communities came together during harvests to exchange news and stories and reconnect with old friends while the grain was unloaded, later became redundant due to their limited capacity. Afterwards, new steel silos and vast sheds supplemented and indeed displaced their concrete predecessors. Currently there are 148 silos throughout Victoria, most of them unused. Of late, changes in the agricultural industry have led many communities to lose their active silo sites, replaced instead by open fields with

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维多利亚的筒仓艺术小径

无处不在的混凝土小麦筒仓分散在维多利亚地区和乡村，无所不在地提醒着该州历史上的一个关键时期。当时，农村生产的快速工业化面临着第二次世界大战的需求和后果。随着世纪之交小麦产量的增加，维多利亚谷物提升机委员会于 1935 年成立，以解决随后在散装运输和储存方面的限制。他们的计划是在现有铁路线上创建一个由 160 个混凝土筒仓组成的网络，以连接到吉朗的航运码头。其中大部分是在 1938 年至 1941 年间根据维多利亚筒仓计划建造的。 然而，随着第二次世界大战的爆发，由于澳大利亚和英国之间的船只短缺，澳大利亚的小麦大量过剩，无法出口。它需要长期存储解决方案。此外，战时物资和劳动力的限制严重影响了筒仓的建设进度。1941 年，随着英国从大西洋彼岸进口粮食，库存短缺成为紧急情况。1945 年战争结束后，随着数千名退役军人的回归和大规模移民的涌入，农业生产的恢复以前所未有的规模增加。谷物生产和处理的快速进步使澳大利亚农民能够收获大量小麦，以满足全球国内和出口市场不断增长的需求。混凝土筒仓，在收获期间，农业社区聚集在一起交换新闻和故事，并在卸粮时与老朋友重新联系，后来由于容量有限而变得多余。之后，新的钢筒仓和大棚补充并确实取代了它们的混凝土前身。目前，维多利亚州有 148 个筒仓，其中大部分未使用。最近，农业产业的变化导致许多社区失去了活跃的筒仓，取而代之的是开放的田地