Peasants and Agriculture under the Second World War Period

• Project/Area Number: 11660219
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Agro-economics
• Research Institution: KYOTO UNIVERSITY
• Principal Investigator: NODA Kimio Kyoto Univ., Graduate School of Agriculture, Professor, 農学研究科, 教授 (30156202)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): ADACHI Yoshihiro Kyoto Univ., Graduate School of Agriculture, Associate Professor, 農学研究科, 助教授 (40283650)
• Project Period (FY): 1999 – 2001
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
• Budget Amount: ¥2,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000); Fiscal Year 2001: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000); Fiscal Year 1999: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
• Keywords: Nouji-jikkokumiai / nouka-kokumiai / hamlet / The Second World War Period / New organization of Japanese Agriculture / 農業団体法 / 農業会 / 皇国農村確立運動 / 食糧増産政策 / 標準農村 / 農業國 / 皇國農村確立運動 / 食料増産政策 / 農業生産統制令

Research Abstract

NOUKA-KOKUMIAI, a kind of peasants co-operatives established in Taisyo-era based on hamlets had a function to create a more progressive agricultural system. These had many valuable experiences to reorganize Japanese agricultural structure depending on peasant's and regional interests. But NOUJI-JIKKOUKUMIAI, which were formed by reorganizing NOUKA-KOKUMIAI in the Second World-war Period, had no such function. This was just a control-association without spontaneity. It's necessary to make clear the difference of these two peasants co-operatives in Pre-war Period. This is the first point of the research.
Hamlets which were mainly villages in Japanese pre-modern era(Edo-era) maintained the character as community still in modern era. The government in the Second World-war make much of hamlet's power to control peasants and to mitigate conflicts due to the lack of manpower and materials. The administrators considered hamlets as self-sustainable unit. But at the last stage of the Second World -war, many hamlets became unable to be act as self-sustainable unit, so the Government were obliged to reconstruct them in larger area, village level or inter-village level and prefecture level or inter-prefecture level in some cases. In the Second World-war Period, we found hamlet's limitations as well as the ability to organize agriculture. This is the second point.
For Japanese peasants, farmland is not only farmland where they cultivate but also a special property inherited from ancestors and a kind of symbol of their social status. So, farmland-property and peasants are combined very strongly. This is one of the biggest reason why it is very difficult to reorganize Japanese agriculture. But the Second World-war was "the total war" which needed to reconstruct all of the old systems to establish new systems which was indispensable for huge-production. As shown at 2), in this period, a lot of manpower and materials were separated once, and recombined in a new way. It's a valuable experience which offered many hints to reorganize Japanese agriculture, even if these were done under extraordinary situation as "total-war-structure ". This is the third point.