日本の復興と農業に対する世銀融資

－愛知用水を中心に－

抄録

This paper focuses on World Bank loans made to Japanese agriculture after the Second World War, through an analysis of the Aichi Irrigation project that ended in 1961. It asks the following three questions:

1) Why did the Japanese government request World Bank loans for the agricultural sector as part of the Japanese economy's reconstruction process?

2) Why did the World Bank develop and implement these loans?

3) What was the project’s impact on Japanese agriculture?

The paper develops the following conclusions:

1) Because of the foreign currency crisis of 1953, the Japanese government needed to increase domestic food production and reduce food imports. The government moreover conceived of the World Bank loans as a possible trigger for outside investment. Although the international balance of payments improved in the course of the loan negotiations and therefore removed the foreign currency crisis as a factor, the impetus to triggering outside investment remained significant. The project thereby addressed not only the agriculture sector but the industrial sector as well.

2) The World Bank was favorable to agriculture-related loans because it was concerned about the effect of the international balance of payments deficit on Japan’s ability to meet its repayment obligations. The Bank's insistence on securing recovery of the loan, however, protracted the negotiations, with the result that the ultimate economic effects of the project differed from the original aims. Although the World Bank loans accounted for an extremely small portion of the project’s total cost, they did serve to make this particular project a government priority, thereby preventing a delay in its implementation and priming the pump for other loans and investment.

3) As a result of the prolonged negotiations, Japan's agricultural aim had changed by the time of the project's completion, from that of increasing production of major cereals to that of introducing commercial crops, which helped to improve farmers' profitability. The agricultural technology that the World Bank initially tried to introduce --irrigation technology in particular-- therefore did not serve as originally intended. Domestic research institutes, however, did develop technologies suitable to Japan's new agricultural situation and aims.