著者

白木沢 旭児

出版者

日本農業史学会

雑誌

農業史研究 (ISSN:13475614)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.36, pp.10-20, 2002

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The purpose of this article is to explain the reason of the fixation of the food import in postwar Japan. Japanese government examined to import rice from Korea under the food shortage after the war. But it was not realized. Instead, wheat, barley and foreign rice were imported from America, Canada, Australia, South East Asia and many other countries. It was difficult to import the rice from the same country every year. The world price of rice was higher than domestic price, so that government bore the cost for selling cheap price. Japan had to trade under the shortage of foreign money, especially dollar. The pattern of the food consumption in postwar Japan was in succession to trend of the increase of animal protein and side dish in prewar Japan. But wheat and barley made up rice shortage and animal protein and fat made up the staple food in postwar. Japanese government dicided the change from foreign rice import to wheat import, because it meant to save on foreign money, to go into the black of the food control account, to improve Japanese people's nutrition. When many wheats turned out to be surplus, America attempted to deal with them by Article 550 of Mutual Saving Act and PL480. The negotiation for the surplus agricultural products between Japan and America determined to increase wheat import instead of foreign rice import. But Japanese government and people thought that food, even the stock-breeding products and feeds, had to support themselves at that time. Japan substituted wheat, barley and foreign rice for Korean rice after the war. After that, Japan substituted wheat for foreign rice in the 1950's. That is why Japanese extent of dependence of food supply didn't change from preawar era to postwar era.