Agricultural Development and Stabilization of Peasant Households f Economy in Modern Rural Japan between the 1870s and 1930s: The Case of Aomori Prefecture

This article clarifies the management of peasant households in the Tsugaru district of the Aomori Prefecture between the 1870s and 1930s, especially focusing on the relationship between the advances in agricultural technology and the labor allocation strategy of the peasant households. We obtained the followings results. (1) The 1870s saw a new rice-cultivating technology being introduced and spread in the Tsugaru district. This technological improvement realized labor savings in rice production in peasant households and also led to improvements in land productivity. However, the harvest was not sufficient enough to stabilize the peasant households f economy because of the poor condition of the land and repeated crop failures. As such, by the 1900s, peasant households also began producing commercial goods as a side-business to offset the risks of agriculture and to acquire extra cash. (2) In Tsugaru, one of the side-businesses peasant households engaged in was straw craft manufacturing. However, by the 1920s, the Aomori Prefecture had lost its competitive advantage to the Hokkaido market in the Kinki district. On the other hand, apple production increased in Tsugaru. Further, apple was designated as a competitive commercial product by the Meiji Government, who then was importing apples in significant quantities from the western countries. (3) In this paper, effective insect/pest-control was found to be one of the important reasons why Tsugaru became the largest apple producer. In particular, the Aomori Prefectural Agriculture Research Center played an important role in the development and diffusion of scientific technologies. Additionally, since the 1870s, Tsugaru was blessed with effective institutions that halted the spread of disease and reduced insect damage. This might have enabled the quick penetration of technologies. (4) In the expansionary phase of apple production, peasant households reduced the amount of labor they invested in rice production and weed eradication, and concentrated heavily on apple production. This labor-intensive apple production realized not only savings in employment costs but also mass production with high quality. As a result, apple production contributed heavily to the stabilization of the households f economy.