Agricultural Development In Modern Japan

Study of economic implications of agrarian reform and agricultural policy in Japan - covers historical aspects, aspects of agriculture and the food industry, agricultural production, cultivation techniques in respect of rice production, plantations, the use of agricultural machinery and fertilisers, animal production, etc.

Among the challenges facing Japan in its quest to match the modern states of the Western world, none was more crucial than the development of agriculture. With a state focused more on the emblematic goals of mechanization, urbanization, and a modern military, it fell upon local elites in villages across the country to bring rice production into the modern era. Middlemen of Modernity explores these elites and their actions in a region in northeastern Japan, presenting a view of the transformation of Japanese agriculture from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Meiji-era agricultural policy called for village elites to mobilize their wealth and local reputations to introduce improved farming methods, transform the physical landscape, and increase agricultural production. Farmers looked to the same figures to use their elevated status and government connections to direct public funds toward building prosperous villages. But economic shocks and social change created a new generation of elites with their own vision for agricultural improvement, leading to conditions that caused famine, economic disparity, and village unrest. The official and local responses to these discrepancies brought an end to the elite leadership of agricultural development at the beginning of the twentieth century, but its legacy set the course for farming and rural Japanese society for the next half century. Middlemen of Modernity offers a new perspective on Japanese modernization, one in which farming villages were neither premodern relics nor secondary concerns for the architects of the new nation. Modernity was worked out in the mud of rice paddies, as much as in any stateroom or factory, and the communities of Miyagi and villages throughout Japan helped shape the modern state, even as they were shaped by it. Mining a wealth of local sources, Christopher Craig provides a comprehensive study studded with stories of individual actors that remains closely connected to Japan's development and presents a history of agriculture from the early Meiji period to the postwar American occupation. Craig also engages with scholarship in environmental history and food studies, and his detailed treatment of the interactions between local villagers and central bureaucrats makes a valuable contribution to studies of state-society relations.

This book contains updated versions of a set of papers presented at the International Conference on Agriculture and Economic Development-A Symposium on Japan's Experience which was held in Tokyo, July, 1967. These papers make a comprehensive reappraisal of Japan's agricultural development and its relevance to economic growth over the last 100 years. They emphasize long-term studies in analyzing Japan's agricultural development, with the century following the Meiji Restoration as the historical setting. Intensive consideration is also given to the Meiji Era, 1868-1912. Part I considers the historical phases of Japan's development, and attempts to give a comprehensive exposition of Japan's long-term growth. Part II deals with productivity growth and technological progress; Part III treats agricultural population and labor force; Part IV includes papers dealing with exports of primary products, credit and financial institutions, farm-household savings, the impact of Land Reform, and food consumption patterns. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Rural Japan during the twentieth century has been portrayed as a vast reservoir of conservatism in much of the literature on Japan's modern development, and Japanese agriculture since the 1960s has been treated as an artificial creation sustained only by protectionism of the worst sort. This book presents a range of original, in-depth work, including work by Japanese scholars, that seeks to move beyond such stereotypes to reveal the diversity and complexities of rural life in Japan from 1900 to the present.

Richard Smethurst shows that the growth of a rural market economy did not impoverish the Japanese farmer. Instead, it led to a general increase in rural prosperity. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.