Page 214 - Changing Living Spaces
P. 214

Masanori Takashima


                       3.00



                       2.50
                      Increase rate of agricultural output (%)  1.50

                       2.00







                       1.00


                       0.50



                       0,00
                           0.00    0.10     0.20     0.30     0.40     0.50
                                      Increase rate of paddy fileds (%)

               Figure 4   Increase of Agricultural Output vs Arable Land (Paddy Fields)
                        in the Latter Half of the Early Modern Period
               Sources  Table 8 and 9.
               predominant commodity as tribute in the middle of the Tokugawa pe-
               riod. However, the local daimyō encouraged the production of local spe-
               cialties and sought to generate financial revenue by monopolising them
               in their domain. In local cultivation areas, some farmers produced com-
               mercial crops and purchased rice with the profits from the sale of com-
               mercial crops; they did not produce rice for self-sufficiency (Honjo 1994;
               Abe 1998).
                 Even when the Japanese archipelago is viewed from a broader per-
               spective, the area of non-paddy fields in eastern Japan has not increased
               significantly. This can be interpreted in two ways. First, the sericultur-
               al industry in the mountainous areas has increased because of the high
               productivity of non-paddy fields. Second, there has been an increase in
               non-paddy fields, which are not cultivated land, in the sericulture indus-
               try. In any case, it can be said that the increase in agricultural production
               on non-paddy fields began in the latter half of the early modern period in
               the region characterised by lands unsuitable for main grain production.


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