Page 180 - Changing Living Spaces

Noriko Yuzawa

Under these circumstances, there was a need to improve crop pro-
ductivity, and fertilizer consumption in Aichi Prefecture increased year
by year. It was important for farmers to use existing resources as much
as possible so as not to rely on expensive purchased fertilizers. In Aichi
Prefecture, poultry manure from poultry farming and human waste,
which increased with urbanization, became important fertilizers in
terms of self-sufficiency.
Examining the wool industry that emerged in Aichi Prefecture at the
beginning of the twentieth century, the waste of workers collected from
factories was sold to surrounding farming villages and returned to farm-
land as ‘night soil’. Document 1 is a record of the trade in human waste
as fertilizer from a textile factory. They traded with about ten farmers.
This page is a record of transactions between a farmer and a factory in
late 1915. Faeces and urine are recorded separately, and the total amount
is given. Interestingly, payment was made in Japanese radish. Other pag-
es show farmers buying night soil in exchange for in-kind payments such
as straw and eggs, or daily wages for cloth factories.
The Industrial Revolution led to the creation of factories and the accu-
mulation of workers, which increased both the demand for food and food
production. In other words, a circular structure was created in which the
human waste of workers was used as fertilizer for food production and
workers ate the Japanese radishes supplied as payment.
In addition to these exchanges between individual factories and farm-
ers, there were increasing discussions in Aichi Prefecture about agricul-
tural production and fertilizers. For example, the prefectural Agricultural
Experiment Station pointed out that although total fertilizer consump-
tion in the prefecture was increasing, productivity was not, which was
attributed to farmers’ inadequate knowledge of fertilizers. Therefore, in
1916, the Agricultural Experiment Station published The Story of Fertilizers,
a technical book on fertilizer use that promoted efficient farming with
fertilizers (Aichi Prefectural Agricultural Experiment Station 1916).
According to the book, in the past, when the land was large and the
population small, it was possible to let the land lie fallow and cultivate it
for several years, and it was assumed that it would then recover. However,
due to population growth, the same land was used two or three times a
year to harvest crops. This increased the need to add fertilizer to the soil
at each harvest and maintain its fertility.
Three components in particular, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potas-
sium, are essential components of fertilizers. Nitrogen is found in com-

178