Among the challenges that confronted farmers in this period was the fragmented nature of land-holding, the legacy of cadastral patterns created by the New England Planters, which worked against large-scale maintenance and development work, especially as more owners became absentee. Also the low capital reserves of farmers after the Great Depression made it difficult to diversify into livestock or other forms of production, especially in the face of strong competition from regions such as the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia which had developed a more diverse agricultural and horticultural economy.

Recognizing this and witnessing the return of much formerly-productive marshland back to the sea, the Maritime Beef Cattle Committee commissioned a survey of dykelands to assess their state. Reporting to the new Maritime Dykeland Reclamation Committee, these surveys noted that not more than a quarter of the dykes were in a safe condition. Emergency repair work was begun under the supervision of the federal government experimental farm in Nappan, Nova Scotia. At the outset the report noted that the dykes were important not just for the agricultural landscape but also for the flood protection they provided for roads, railways and urban settlements. Spreading responsibility for protection works between provincial and federal governments and carrying out experiments with large equipment, such as the use of bulldozers and drag lines, laid the ground work for more active involvement of the federal government and the passage of the 1948 Maritime Marshland Reclamation Act (MMRA), part of a package of regional development initiatives put in place by the post-war government. One of the early advantages of this scale of operation for the Tantramar area was the construction of a large tidal dam on the Tantramar River in 1960, adjacent to the current Trans-Canada Highway. In one major piece of engineering, thousands of acres of the Tantramar Marshes were drained and freed from tidal inundation. This work was achieved at great expense. Yet, the agricultural yields of the Tantramar area have continued to decline. While 28,000 acres were protected and reclaimed in the Tantramar area under the MMRA, a further 27,000 acres were removed from production. By 1966, crop production had dropped by half compared to sixty years earlier and much marshland was converted to extensive pasturage.