Rice Agriculture And The Food Supply In Premodern Japan

The majority of studies on the agricultural history of Japan have focused on the public administration of land and production, and rice, the principal source of revenue, has received the most attention. However, while this cereal has clearly played a decisive role in the public economy of the Japanese State, it has not had a predominant place in agricultural production. Far from confining its scope to a study of rice growing for tax purposes, this volume looks at the subsistence economy in the plant kingdom as a whole. This book examines the history of agriculture in premodern Japan from the 8th to the 17th century, dealing with the history of agricultural techniques and food supply of rice, wheat, millet and other grains. Drawing extensively on material from history, literature, archaeology, ethnography and botany, it analyses each of the farming operations from sowing to harvesting, and the customs pertaining to consumption. It also challenges the widespread theory that rice cultivation has been the basis of "Japaneseness" for two millennia and the foundation of Japanese civilization by focusing on the biodiversity and polycultural traditions of Japan. Further, it will play a role in the current dialogue on the future of sustainable agricultural production from the viewpoints of ecology, biodiversity, dietary culture and food security throughout the world as traditional techniques such as crop rotation are explored in connection with the safeguarding of the minerals in the soil. Surveying agricultural techniques across the centuries and highlighting the dietary diversity of Japan, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, the history of science and technology, medieval history, cultural anthropology and agriculture.

The majority of studies on the agricultural history of Japan have focused on the public administration of land and production, and rice, the principal source of revenue, has received the most attention. However, while this cereal has clearly played a decisive role in the public economy of the Japanese State, it has not had a predominant place in agricultural production. Far from confining its scope to a study of rice growing for tax purposes, this volume looks at the subsistence economy in the plant kingdom as a whole. This book examines the history of agriculture in premodern Japan from the 8th to the 17th century, dealing with the history of agricultural techniques and food supply of rice, wheat, millet and other grains. Drawing extensively on material from history, literature, archaeology, ethnography and botany, it analyses each of the farming operations from sowing to harvesting, and the customs pertaining to consumption. It also challenges the widespread theory that rice cultivation has been the basis of "Japaneseness" for two millennia and the foundation of Japanese civilization by focusing on the biodiversity and polycultural traditions of Japan. Further, it will play a role in the current dialogue on the future of sustainable agricultural production from the viewpoints of ecology, biodiversity, dietary culture and food security throughout the world as traditional techniques such as crop rotation are explored in connection with the safeguarding of the minerals in the soil. Surveying agricultural techniques across the centuries and highlighting the dietary diversity of Japan, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese history, the history of science and technology, medieval history, cultural anthropology and agriculture.

The Japanese Occupation of Southeast Asia between 1941 and 1945 brought with it severe food shortages, largely arising from organizational failures and inadequate transportation. the nine essays in this volume examine the situation in food exporting countries such as Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, in food deficit areas such as Malaya, the Philippines and Java, and in Sarawak which was largely self-sufficient. Two essays examine in detail the famine that struck the Tonkin area of northern Vietnam in 1945.

In this engaging account of the crucial significance of rice for the Japanese, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney examines how people use the metaphor of a principal food, such as rice, corn, or wheat, in conceptualizing themselves in relation to other peoples who eat other foods. Rice as Self shows how the Japanese identity was born through discourse with the Chinese, the first historical other. It shows how rice agriculture, in itself introduced from outside, was, ironically, appropriated as a dominant metaphor of the Japanese self. Since then rice and rice paddies have served as the vehicles for their deliberation of selves and others. Using for evidence such diverse sources as myth-histories of the eighth century, the imperial accession ritual, woodblock prints, novels, day-to-day discourse, and opinion polls, Ohnuki-Tierney shows that throughout Japan's history the cultural importance of rice has been deeply embedded in Japanese cosmology, both of the elite and common folk - rice as soul, rice as deity, and ultimately rice as self of the family, the community, and the nation at large. This, she emphasizes, has been so even though rice has not been the "staple food" of the Japanese, as is commonly held. Using Japan as an example, Ohnuki-Tierney proposes a new and complex cross-cultural model for the interpretation of selves and others. The historical transformations of the Japanese identity have been intimately related not only to their encounter with foreigners - the external other - but also to the process of the marginalization of minorities within Japanese society - the internal other - and of external others who ceased to be the privileged other. The model takes into account the power inequities both within and outside a given society. It has broad applications, especially to people for whom foreign "cultural hegemony" is part and parcel of a complex, often ambivalent, process of self-identity.

Kuroda uses quantitative measures to investigate the rice production structure and effects of agricultural policies in Japan over the second half of the 20th century. Almost all policies have played negative roles in transferring paddy lands from small- to large-scale farms, which has slowed down to modernize the rice sector.

Scholarship on premodern Japan has grown spectacularly over the past four decades, in terms of both sophistication and volume. A new approach has developed, marked by a higher reliance on primary documents, a shift away from the history of elites to broader explorations of social structures, and a re-examination of many key assumptions. As a result, the picture of the early Japanese past now taught by specialists differs radically from the one that was current in the mid-twentieth century. This handbook offers a comprehensive historiographical review of Japanese history up until the 1500s. Featuring chapters by leading historians and covering the early Jōmon, Yayoi, Kofun, Nara, and Heian eras, as well as the later medieval periods, each section provides a foundational grasp of the major themes in premodern Japan. The sections will include: Geography and the environment Political events and institutions Society and culture Economy and technology The Routledge Handbook of Premodern Japanese History is an essential reference work for students and scholars of Japanese, Asian, and World History.