FARMERS’ PLIGHT

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1932, Page 8

FARMERS’ PLIGHT

DEPRESSION IN JAPAN

HIGH COSTS: LOW PRICES

TOKIO, August 16.

Depression in Japan hides itself in the; cottages of the- peasant farm’ers, and; the comparative absence of unemployment—officially estimated at., .between 300,000 and. 400,000—has hitherto only masked its extent. The farm problem can be simply stated in a few figures. The Japanese farmer, in the mass, is a specialist iii rice-growing, to which be adds the cultivation of silk as a lucrative uid’e-line. The average price ,of rice in 1926 was 16s a bushel ; it is to-day about . 9s. Raw silk, - which in ,1926 was, selling at an average price of £l4O a bale, is now about £35. The value of farm land declined in 1930-31 by an average' of 21 per cent. In the previous year it had fallen by 7 per cent., so last year’s falLl 1 , which,is continuing at an accelerated pace this year, is suggestive of an agricultural panic. Farming in Japan is a major nation.aP; Industry conducted in units of market-garden size. Farms of , lese than 11 acres constituted 35 per dent, of the total according to the last survey of the Department of Agriculture: farms between 11 acres and 21 acres, 34 -per Cent.; 91 per cent, of all farms Were under- five acres. The smallness of the area, the high “human’.’ cost of production—for though the farmer and his,: family get but a bare living by their labour the employment of sc large’ a number of so small a scale is uneconomic—mean that a comparatively small, fall in prices causes discomfort*, and a fall of over 50 per cent such as has actuaillly occurred, is a catastrophe. On farms like onehalf .of Japan’s 60,000,000 people livesix families out of every 12—and 80 .per cent, of Japan’s soldiers are drawn from the farms.

HEAVY DEBTS

As the prices of bis prodilqe. sank; the.:.‘Japanese farmer’s debts gradual ly mounted,. unti'l he is now carry, ng a lpad which, as, things aye* he ban* riot Possibly pay. The. ■ latest and best/estitoate of-'-farm dhibts. is • •• that of the Japan Hypothec Bank, a soiriisWe institution created to deal with the finance. Pf ’agriculture. Its computation shows that the total is at present-in the neigiibourhood,of. 4,585,000,090 -yen >< approximately £458,000,-' 000; d* B -par of exchange. This works I obt at- about £IOO- per family. On the debt the, annual burden would be £4-5, 000j000 a voar if the farmer paid interest'-at the rate of 10 per cent '. Unfortunately he pays more., Of his total loans;! 57j,per cent, have been by prjy,ate lendersnom* 1 inal rate- of about 12 ppt* cent, and ' a real rate said to be between 20 and j <3O > per'cent. - Farms so small, employing the farmer-iand his family, and exacting >the hardest'’ brifi.;not. .the 'best-directed or most profitable work from them, are uneconomical. A calculation made some 'years ago showed that Great Britain product every year, with the laboursome 2,000,000 people agricultural produce of. approximately the sairfe value as Japan with 16,000 } 000 people engaged on the land. But, it is idle to say that small-scale farming is uneconomical. Japan must accommodate half the population, of the ' United, States on an a-rea equivalent to that .of’ the State of. .California. R-'-' while in California one-third of the. totaj. area is under cultivation, in mountainous Japan the cultivated area’ is only one-eighth'. Japan has pro,i V vided for her increasing population ;by developing intensive cultivation till | it may lie said that the land is supersaturated with people. , - i-j