Page 215 - Changing Living Spaces

Wet-Rice Agriculture and Economic Growth in Pre-Industrial Japan

3.00

2.50
Increase rate of agricultural output (%) 1.50

2.00

1.00

0.50

0.00
-0.2 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80
Increase rate of non-paddy fields (%)

Figure 5 Increase of Agricultural Output vs Arable Land (Non-paddy Fields)
in the Latter Half of the Early Modern Period
Sources Table 8 and 9.
In contrast, the rate of increase in non-paddy fields was higher in west-
ern Japan than in eastern Japan. However, this was due to the progress
in commodity crop cultivation in the plains areas, especially in areas with
high cotton production. In other words, the growth of agricultural pro-
duction in non-paddy fields for commodity crop cultivation occurred in
the latter half of the early modern period, but the distribution of this
growth pattern varied from region to region, especially between the
plains and mountainous areas.
This is more significant than the mere importance of the extent of
non-paddy fields in terms of land use. In other words, pre-modern ag-
riculture centred on paddy field agriculture was altered by political and
commercial factors, not by changes in the natural environment.
As mentioned earlier, this is due to the political reforms under the
leadership of the Shogun. In the mid-eighteenth century (Kyōhō Reform),
Tokugawa Yoshimune encouraged the development of local specialties
for each daimyo who ruled the Japanese archipelago. The financially poor

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