Pioneering in Japan

David Love

In Japan, the problem of matching domestic agricultural development and capacity with the needs of a fast-growing industrial economy is a continuing one. A scheme launched 11 years ago to streamline the process of land settlement and improvement today provides an object lesson in achievement through adaptability.

Carp flags to celebrate Boys' Day fly from a pole outside a new homestead in the Konsen plain.

©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Pioneering in Japan

OKYO, OSAKA, YOKOHAMA—the T names of these great cities are familiar throughout the world as symbols of booming, industrial Japan. Very few people outside Japan, however, have ever heard of a township called Naka-Shibetsu, which is enjoying a different kind of boom, far away from the smok- ing, hustling cities of the island of Honshu. Naka-Shibetsu is on the eastern coast of the snow-capped northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is minuscule in relation to Osaka and Yokohama. And its growth and upsurging commercial activity are only indirectly con- nected with the great industrial drive of the south. But Naka-Shibetsu's success is none- theless important to Japan, and to other David Love, an Australian, is a staff writer countries of Asia as well. in the Bank's Information Department. He started his career in journalism with The Japan's Drive in Agriculture Goulburn Evening Post in New South Wales, and while working for The Australian Finan- Naka-Shibetsu's little boom is the product of cial Review newspaper in Canberra, he graduated as a Bachelor of Economics from the a new drive in Japanese agriculture, much less Australian National University there. spectacular than the revolution in industry, but in the long run, perhaps, not much less signfi- cant. It is the product of a new national effort Akan Ranges, with long fingers of spring snow to end a duality in the Japanese economic drifting down its sides, like strips of white structure—the contrast between a system of paper on a blue party hat. Between the two heavy industry as modern and efficient as any- stretches the wide, high prairie of Konsen. It thing in the world, and an agricultural struc- is development that has taken place on this ture still struggling to keep pace with the misty, wind-whipped plateau in the last 11 economy as a whole. years that is largely responsible for the conver- sion of Naka-Shibetsu from a scruffy back- A few miles outside Naka-Shibetsu township, woods village to a thriving, modern country at the top of Kayodai Hill, the prospering town. townspeople have erected a lookout kiosk and set up a rotating telescope holder, and from Eleven years ago a great part of the Konsen here you can look out, on a clear day, around plain was virgin country, wild and forbidding, a vast, 270-degree horizon. To the east, rising inhabited by bears and the wild horses that are from the mists of the sea, you will see a moun- the legacy in Hokkaido of ancient efforts to use tain top at the southern tip of the Kurile island the island as a breeding ground for Samurai chain. To the west looms Mount Mashu, in the steeds. In modern industrial Japan the Konsen

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©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Finance and Development prairie had remained largely primeval, despite roofed barns and glint of metal milking sheds repeated efforts by the Government to have scatter the landscape, and ordered windbreak people move there and open the land to live- lines of spruce and larch bend and rustle in the stock and crop raising. The Japanese farmer, wind. In the fields, black and white Holstein used to the warm rice paddies of the south, dairy cows graze the crops of timothy grass found the northern winters grim and the soil and rye. From a farmers' village school of the plateau unrewarding. Most of all, he farther out the breeze catches and carries up found that axe and plow and animal power the crack and shout of children playing base- were weapons too weak to clear the land of ball. forest and so allow him to pursue settled farming. Even as late as the 1950's, much of the World Bank Cooperates great Konsen plain was still given over to a How was this extraordinary transformation primitive, shifting agriculture. brought about in just 11 years? In the face Today, the dominant theme in the view from of earlier frustration and so much wasted the lookout is that of ordered settlement. In effort, how was the view from Kayodai Hill so the foreground a television tower rises from effectively changed? Part of the answer is the the side of Kayodai Hill, and from the middle changing food demands of the prospering distance comes the sight and sound of a 60- Japanese city dweller. As he achieves better liv- horsepower tractor crossing an open field. Red- ing standards, he moves away from the tradi- japan with Enlarged View of Hokkaido tional rice diet toward high-protein foods— meat, milk, cream, butter, and cheese—the kind of foods the Konsen lands are suited to produce. But the main reason for the change is an imaginative scheme of the Japanese Govern- ment carried out in cooperation with the World Bank. In the early 1950's the Japanese Govern- ment examined the structure of its agriculture and the composition of its imports. It noted that a disturbingly large and increasing propor- Konsen Plain tion of its foreign exchange was being used to import basic foodstuffs. It decided that unless Japanese economic growth was to be retarded by pressure on the country's balance of payments, it would need to do something about domestic agriculture, and it asked the World Bank for advice about what it might do.

*-,. v The Bank, among other things, recommended «' ' SHIKOKU an increase in farms devoted to livestock,

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©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Pioneering in Japan particularly dairy cattle, to meet the changing their own for using the power of the AMC to pattern of demand. It endorsed Japanese ideas extend and consolidate their holdings. The of land reclamation and of promoting the legacy of these hopes is on view today from pioneering settlement of areas that were remote the lookout on Kayodai Hill. Much less than and undeveloped but which had productive half the transformation of the plain is due to potential. But it suggested that both the rec- the original "pilot" work of the AMC. The lamation and the pioneering could be made a greater part is the result of the hoped-for "im- great deal more effective by large-scale mech- pact" effect upon earlier pioneers. anization. To this end it suggested the setting up of a mobile, specialist body. Government-Aided Cooperatives In 1955 the Japanese Government estab- Survivors of an earlier wave of pioneer lished an organization called the Agricultural farmers, attempting to win the land by hand Land Development Machinery Public Corpora- and animal power, had been scattered over a tion (now officially abbreviated to AMC). In wide area around the Konsen district for a 1956 the World Bank extended a foreign ex- number of years before AMC reached the change loan to this corporation to help to scene. Like farmers everywhere in Japan, these finance the purchase of reclamation and devel- earlier pioneers had formed themselves into opment machinery which it needed but which cooperatives—institutions which are basic to an was not yet available from local Japanese understanding of modern Japanese rural society sources. One of the first tasks allotted AMC and the Government's policies toward it. (The was to begin carving 48-acre farm blocks out cooperative is a government-nurtured organiza- of the wild Konsen forest. AMC was to carry tion of farmers, combining roughly the func- the establishment of these first pioneer farms tions of a trade union, bulk purchaser, market- to the completion of a house and barn, initial ing agent, tax collector, savings and loan chemical improvement of the soil, the sowing society, commercial and development bank, and of the first year's crop, and the provision of ultimate arm of local government. In the livestock; it was also to provide a network wealthier farming areas it is not uncommon for of roads among the newly opened farms. these cooperatives to employ staffs of up to six or seven college-graduated experts.) Im- When the farms were in operating condition pressed by the initial "pilot" farm achievements they were to be purchased by selected pioneer of AMC, the older pioneer cooperatives of the settlers on generous credit terms, including an region investigated and found the Government initial "settling-in" period during which no re- willing to help them pay AMC to extend exist- payments were due. If this first attack on the ing holdings into virgin country, to consolidate forest proved reasonably successful, then the scattered clearings, and to open new land for AMC would extend its carving-out of farms the younger generation. from the forest. And, in the meantime, it was hoped that survivors of earlier attempts to To this day, although AMC's main task pioneer that area of Hokkaido by axe and force has long ago moved to newer challenges, domestic animal power would frame plans of about 40 of its operators are still kept busy

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©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Finance and Development carving into what remains of the Konsen bush person in 1955 to 37 kilograms a person in on negotiated work for the cooperatives of 1964. Over the same period consumption of both the older and newer pioneers. This process cereals, including rice, has actually declined of direct negotiation between the mobile AMC slightly from 155.2 kilograms a person in 1955 and the farmers' cooperatives has allowed AMC to 147.4 kilograms in 1964. Meat, milk, and to assist the renovation and commercialization eggs, which accounted for 10 per cent of of Japanese agriculture over a very large area, household food expenditure in 1955, claimed both in Hokkaido and on the heavily indus- 18 per cent in 1964. In comparison, the pro- trialized island of Honshu. portion of total expenditure going to rice has declined from 28.3 per cent in 1955 to 17 per The Dynamics of Changing Demand cent in 1964. This marked switch in the composition of a rapidly growing total food demand Statistics compiled by the Japanese Ministry is, of course, the direct product of expanding of Agriculture and Forestry show something affluence—and comparison with the dietary about the dynamics of this boom in dairying habits in Western countries such as the United and livestock raising. Since 1955 Japanese States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, consumption of milk and milk products has and Denmark suggests that the process has more than tripled, from 12.1 kilograms a still some considerable distance to run in Japan.

Former wastelands of peat and volcanic ash in the Konsen plain and in the Ishikari River Valley in Hok- kaido are now dairy farmlands. Originally only 48 acres, the newest tracts average 92 acres.

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©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Pioneering in Japan

To meet this demand, the dairy and live- ture of people transplanting themselves, and stock industries in the underutilized northern turning virgin soil for the first time. Who are island is growing at an extraordinary rate: from these pioneers, where had they come from, and an estimated 50,000 head of cattle in Hokkaido how have they fared? A significant proportion 20 years ago, the total is conservatively ex- were victims of the sharp and sudden elimina- pected to reach 600,000 head by 1970. Of the tion of Japan's overseas territories in the war. marked increase in dairy production thus oc- They were Japanese farmers, technicians, and curing, more than three fourths is now being teachers who had settled before World War II shipped to Tokyo and other southern industrial in such overseas territories as Manchuria, cities. This export surplus will grow rapidly in Sakhalin, and the Kuriles. In the late 1940's the years immediately ahead. and 1950's they found themselves impoverished refugees back in the homeland. Agricultural Machinery Corporation A representative family on one of the more The modern pioneering role of the AMC in recently cleared (1961) Konsen pilot farms is this upsurge of production, though difficult to that of Tsutomu Ogasawara. He lives with his assess precisely, clearly has been substantial. wife, his high school daughter, 13, and his Its success has depended to a large extent upon primary school son, 10. In 1945 Mr. its ability to communicate with the farming Ogasawara and his wife and a 4-year-old community and to use and increase the variety daughter had been caught by the advancing of mobile equipment, ranging from dump trucks Soviet Army in Manchuria. They were taken to swamp dredgers, with which it was originally to an area near the Russian-Manchurian border endowed in 1955. At that time it was given where Mr. Ogasawara was sent to work in a three development and settlement projects. One coal mine and his wife was ordered to work in a was the conquering of the Konsen plain, an- hospital. They remained there for 8 years; other was a similar kind of forest-taming opera- during this time their daughter died of malnutri- tion on the Kamikita plain at the northeastern tion. tip of Honshu. The third was the reclamation and reconstruction of 30,000 acres of low, In 1953 Mr. Ogasawara and his wife were water-logged peatland beside the great Ishikari repatriated to Japan. After working for a time River in the Shinozu district on the western in Tokyo, he went to Aomori prefecture in side of Hokkaido. Honshu to learn the dairying industry. In 1961 he applied for, and received, a newly opened Each of these projects has had its impact on Konsen pilot farm. He has prospered. He has Japanese agricultural efficiency and on Japan's his motorcycle, his television set, his radio, his ability to produce goods that were formerly electric stove, electric washing machine, electric imported. Each also has contributed invaluably milking machine, and propane gas water heater. to the acquisition of a stock of technical ex- Even so, he does not yet represent the most pertise and experience which has made the 11 - prosperous group of Konsen pilot farmers. year-old AMC an increasingly valuable asset to The group who arrived in 1956 have had more Japan. But each, too, has involved the adven- of a chance to become established, and have

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©International Monetary Fund. Not for Redistribution Finance and Development larger, brighter barns, taller fodder silos. Some remarkable example of Japanese institutional own tractors and trucks, and some even own adaptability—the farmers' cooperative—to help cars. to provide the answer. The cooperative under- took to acquire the blocks of less successful Some Failures pioneers who wanted to leave for jobs in the cities, and to apportion the land and the debt Of course, there were setbacks, difficulties, evenly so that as many as possible of those that failures. Jersey cattle imported from Australia remained could prosper on something like city for the settlers—on World Bank advice and standards. About 50 families have left Konsen, with World Bank finance—have been, in the and their land has been divided among the opinion of the settlers, less than a success, remainder. although the Japanese are politely indefinite about this. In the Konsen area approximately The aim now for the Konsen area—as for 160 of these cattle turned out to have a newer livestock land development projects, disease called brucellosis, previously unknown based on the Konsen experience, in which the in the region. In any event the Japanese Gov- AMC is engaged in other regions—is an aver- ernment's formula for supporting the price of age farm size of about 92 acres. Of this area, milk tends to make the Jersey a less inviting about 54 acres would be sown to pasture, 29 proposition to these farmers than the traditional would be left unsown, about 9 would be left as black and white Holstein (which produces less forest to allow for future expansion, and about butter fat but more milk). The Jersey cattle half an acre would be used for the farmhouse population of the Konsen region is actually and outbuildings. declining at the same time as total cattle population is rapidly rising. Some farmers, saddled In an economic and social structure chang- with the task of repaying loan money for Jersey ing as rapidly as that of Japan it was inevitable cattle, are resentful. that time should reveal some errors in human judgment in long-term planning for land settle- In Konsen, too, it is clear enough now that ment. Fortunately, Japanese administration has the original individual 48-acre pilot farm areas, been skillful and flexible enough to keep adjust- estimated in the early 1950's as sufficient to ing. And today—11 years after the Japanese give the farmers a fair income relative to what Government first launched its experiment—its they might expect to earn working for wages strongly capitalized, mass production land in the city, were not big enough. In 1954 and pioneering push can, on balance, be judged a 1955, no one could have foreseen the miracu- fair investment. The great majority of pioneers lous growth that would occur in the Japanese established on government initiative are now industrial economy over the decade, a growth well settled. Lives broken in midstream by which has almost doubled the level of real war in distant territories have been rebuilt. Net wages in Japanese manufacturing industry incomes of most of the settlers have risen much since that time. In its later work, the AMC cut faster than expected, and are now about the bigger blocks; but this was no compensation for national farm average. Moreover, they are locked-in original farmers. It was left to that founded on a basis that should allow the

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farmers to hold their place in the growing na- Not the least important of the results has tional prosperity. been the establishment of the AMC itself, and But more important probably than settlement its contribution to the continuing task of com- by government initiative has been the impact mercializing Japanese agriculture and of ex- of the mechanized pioneering on the already panding and diversifying the domestic food existing conservative farm communities. Great supply. Proving itself—like, the farmers' co- swaths of country have been transformed by operatives with which it has worked so closely now under the stimulus of example—some- —a classic example of Japanese creative times from virgin forest, probably more often adaptability, it has substantially expanded its from the consolidation and tidying up of function and more than doubled its size. From haphazard, patchy land into neat settings for the original three experimental projects, AMC mechanized, commercial agriculture. now has a total of 200 under way throughout

The standard farm dwellings provided by the Corporation have 540 square feet of living quarters. Settlers have partitioned the interiors to satisfy individual tastes and requirements.

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Japan—ranging from relatively small-scale It is likely that the more successful and more tidying-up contracts for farmers' cooperatives durably useful of the new pieces of equipment to big national land reclamation ventures. Op- will become standard items of manufacture in erating under the constructive supervision of Japanese factories. the Ministry of Agriculture, it has drawn high- quality staff from local and central government, An important change in the basic economic from public utilities, and from private industry. rationale behind AMC's activities has occurred It has now a permanent staff of more than 500 since it began attacking the forests of Konsen civil, mechanical and agricultural engineers, 11 years ago. The tremendous pull of machine operators, mechanics, and administra- Japanese industrial growth upon total labor re- tors. It operates more than 500 different items sources has made the idea of settling significant of construction equipment and machinery. quantities of new families on the land im- With headquarters in Tokyo, it has decentral- practicable. More important now is to con- ized its administration and operating capacity solidate and mechanize Japanese agriculture so to cover the whole of Japan on a regional that fewer people can handle bigger strips of basis, while still retaining the flexibility and country, thus increasing the commercial effi- mobility which allow regional governments ciency of agriculture and allowing the incomes to use it, at sudden notice, as an effective of those remaining on the land to expand in troubleshooter against the ever present threat of harmony with urban incomes. typhoon damage to the ricelands. Meanwhile, in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Agriculture, officials are turning New Projects over the idea of expanding AMC still further, The biggest current effort is the reclamation of using some of the special skills, equipment, from the sea of the 54,000-acre Lake Hachiro, and experience it has built up in operations the second biggest lake in the country, con- within the country's new effort in technical and nected to the Sea of Japan by a narrow economic aid to Southeast Asia. Mr. Yoshiyuki channel on the northwest coast of Honshu. Shimokawa, Director-in-Charge of Technical AMC has the job of converting the lake bed Development at AMC—who came across from into relatively large-scale blocks of paddy-field the Hokkaido Bureau of Development six years and grazing land, suitable for mechanized ago—spoke recently about the possibility farming. For this venture AMC has used its of the Corporation exporting its services to experience and staff to the full. Imported Southeast Asia. He strongly favored the idea. equipment designed for road work and other "We want to hold our bright young men," he hard-earth projects has been adapted by corpo- said, "and many of them are desperately keen ration engineers to work in silt and boggy soil. to get out there and into the job of helping de- New amphibious operations have been devel- velopment in the rest of Asia. We think they oped to work the earth from water surfaces. could do this best through us."

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