Agriculture in the Empire of Japan

This situation was worsened by the deflationary Matsukata Fiscal Policy of 1881–1885, which severely depressed rice prices, leading to further bankruptcies, and even to large scale rural uprisings against the government.

In the early Meiji period, landowners collected a high rate of rent in kind, rather than cash and consequently played a major role in the development of agriculture, since the tenant farmers found it difficult to obtain capital.

It was established in 1910, and provided assistance to individual cooperatives through transmission of agricultural research and facilitating the sales of farm products.

This organization was of vital importance after nationwide markets were consolidated under government control in the aftermath of the Rice Riots of 1918 and increasing economic crisis from the late 1920s.

After the Rice Riots of 1918, many peasants came under the influence of the urban labor movement with socialist, communist and/or agrarian ideas, which created serious political issues.

In 1922, the Nihon Nomin Kumiai (Japan Farmer's Union) was formed for collective bargaining for cultivator rights and reduced rents.

With the growth of the wartime economy, the government recognized that landlordism was an impediment to increased agricultural productivity, and took steps to increase control over the rural sector through the formation of the Central Agricultural Association (中央農会, Chuo Nokai) in 1943, which was a compulsory organization under the wartime command economy to force the implementation of government farming policies.

The sparsely populated Chishima Islands had an inclement climate for anything other than small-scale agriculture; the economy was based the fishing, whaling, and harvest of furs and reindeer meat.

The tropical Ryūkyū Islands with their limited cultivatable area had a largely subsistence agriculture based on rice, sweet potatoes, sugar cane and fruits.

With a large ethnic Chinese population, agricultural methods and products in Taiwan were in the Chinese-style, with rice cultivation and sweet potatoes dominating.

The equatorial tropical conditions of the South Seas Mandate islands supported farming of coconuts, taro, sweet potatoes, tapioca, bananas, pineapples and rice, for local use and export.

However, the very limited cultivable land area of the South Seas Mandate meant that fishing and whaling remained more economically important.

This was the main center of cultivation in the region, with farming of sugar cane, pineapple, bananas, sweet potato and other tropical crops.