10 - Agricultural Technology and the Environment in Modern Japan

Summary

In this chapter, I show the development history of modern Japanese agricultural technology, focusing on rice breeding, tractors, chemical fertilizers and the spread of pesticides. To that end, we must consider not only the mainland of Japan, but also the transformation of the former colonies. Furthermore, the short history of organic farming and Teikei (“partnership”) movement to connect producers and consumers, which was born to compete with these modern agricultural techniques, is also touched upon.

Introduction

The Japanese archipelago, surrounded by the sea, has a mild and humid climate. About twothirds of the country is mountainous forested area and the remaining is plains. Most Japanese people live and have lived on the plains, amid rivers and natural and human-made ponds of various sizes, cultivating rice, wheat, soybeans and many kinds of vegetables. Currently, the total area of cultivated land in Japan is about 2.4 million ha of paddy fields and about 2 million ha of plowed fields, occupying about 12 percent of the total area of Japan.

If one travels across the Japanese archipelago by rail and sees the landscape through the window of the train, it would not be strange to regard Japan as a rich agricultural country with its many paddy fields with systematic irrigation and plowed fields for other crops. It is not difficult to identify mandarin orange orchards on the sides of hills, well-manicured tea fields, apple orchards, and vineyards in the rural areas of Japan. In Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, which has a humid continental climate, there are vast fields of potatoes, onions, soybeans, red beans and sugar beets, while subtropical island regions such as Okinawa have fields of sugarcane and pineapple.

However, from an economic point of view, agriculture does not now comprise a significant sector in Japan as compared with other industrial countries. According to 1970 statistics, the percentage of Japan's GDP accounted for by agricultural production was about 5.56 percent; but according to 2018 statistics, it is only about 0.86 percent. In addition, the area of cultivated land per operator averages 2.87 ha (2017) in Japan, as compared to 179 ha (2016) in the United States, 58.6 ha (2013) in Germany, and 16.1 ha (2013) in the European Union as a whole.