Japanese Agriculture

( 日本の農業 )
Gallego, Arvin Kit
Lopez, Dale Matthew
Sipat, Kier William
Ybiernas, Seth Matthew
History of   Wet rice farming was introduced around 400 B.C. and
agricultural farming began to take hold as a way of
Japanese life in Japan.
Agriculture  Rice farming changed life and society in Yayoi Japan
profoundly.  
  After the end of the Tokugawa bakufu with the Meiji
Restoration of 1868, Japanese agriculture was
dominated by a tenant farming system. The Meiji
Meiji Period government based its industrialization program on tax
revenues from private land ownership, and the Land
Tax Reform of 1873 increased the process of
landlordism, with many farmers having their land
confiscated due to inability to pay the new taxes.
  The Imperial Agricultural Association was a central
organization for agricultural cooperatives in the Empire
Taishō period of Japan. It was established in 1910, and provided
assistance to individual cooperatives through
transmission of agricultural research and facilitating
the sales of farm products.
  By the 1930s, the growth of the urban economy and
flight of farmers to the cities gradually weakened the
hold of the landlords. The interwar years also saw the
rapid introduction of mechanized agriculture, and the
supplementation of natural animal fertilizers
with chemical fertilizers and imported phosphates.
With the growth of the wartime economy, the
Shōwa period government recognized that landlordism was an
impediment to increased agricultural productivity, and
took steps to increase control over the rural sector
through the formation of the Central Agricultural
Association in 1943, which was a compulsory
organization under the wartime command economy to
force the implementation of government farming
policies.
Japan
Agricultural
Situation
  From June 3 - 10, 2012, USDA/FAS personnel and staff
from the US Embassy in Tokyo visited two major
agricultural areas of Japan - Niigata prefecture and city
Japan in the western part of the country, and Miyagi
prefecture and the city of Sendai on the east coast.  The
Agricultural purpose of the trip was to get an overall understanding
Situation of Japan’s agricultural sector, with an emphasis on rice
production practices, consumption issues, and the
recovery efforts following the March 11, 2011
earthquake and tsunami.
The
Importance of
Rice
  Rice is by far the most important crop in Japan and planted on the
The best agricultural land. Other crops grown in Japan include
soybeans, wheat, barley, and a large variety of fruit and
Importance of vegetables. The climate in Japan ranges from temperate in the
north to semi-tropical in the south, with abundant rainfall
Rice (typhoons are common), hot summers, and relatively mild winters
(except in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido).
  The most striking feature of Japanese agriculture is the
shortage of farmland. The 49,000 square kilometers
(19,000 sq. mi) under cultivation constituted just 13.2%
of the total land area in 1988. However, the land is
Land intensively cultivated. Rice paddies occupy most of the
countryside, whether on the alluvial plains, the
Shortage terraced slopes, or wetlands and coastal bays. Non-
paddy farmland share the terraces and lower slopes
and are planted with wheat and barley in the autumn
and with sweet potatoes, vegetables, and dry rice in
the summer. Intercropping is common: such crops are
alternated with beans and peas.
  Livestock raising is a minor activity. Demand for beef
 rose in the 1900s, and farmers often shifted from dairy
farming to production of high-quality (and high-cost)
beef, such as Kobe beef. Throughout the 1980s,
domestic beef production met over 2% of demand. In
1991, as a result of heavy pressure from the United
States, Japan ended import quotas on potatoes as well
Livestock as citrus fruit. Milk cows are numerous in Hokkaido,
where 25% of farmers run dairies, but milk cows are
also raised in Iwate, in Tōhoku, and near Tokyo and 
Kobe. Beef cattle are mostly concentrated in western 
Honshu, and on Kyushu. Hogs, the oldest domesticated
animals raised for food, are found everywhere. Pork is
the most popular meat.