岩手県におけるたばこ栽培地域の分化とその形成

抄録

The author has been engaged in the analytical study of agricultural differetiation in response to the penetration of capitalism into backward regions. In Iwate Prefecture, 11% of farming households are raising tobacco. It is the main theme of this paper to analyse the factors which caused this concentration and differentiation of tobacco culture in this district.
The development of the tobacco raising till World War II can be divided into 4 stages. 1) the culture of tobacco in the Ohazama and Higashi-Iwai areas in the feudal age, 2) the stage of free competition at the beginning of Meiji era, 3) the early stage after the enforcement of the tobacco monopoly law, and 4) the period under the full influence of the Monopoly Bureau.
(1) In the 4th stage, the growing area is concentrated in the Ohazama and Higashi-Iwai districts where the tobacco of native kinds has been cultured traditionally. This is quite different from the development in second and third stages, when the area spread all over the prefecture. (2) As to the change in acreages of cropped area, the acreage in the Ohazama area is small, while Higashi-Iwai area participates in the major part of the change. The general trend of the changes is same as that which took place in the country as a whole, suggesting that the tobacco growing farmers in these areas responded to the governmental policy and the changes of agricultural economy in the similar ways as those of the Japanese farmers as a whole. (3) The acreage of cropped area in Iwate Pref., has increased until 1914, decreased in 1915-1918, and became stable since 20's. The increase shows that the tobacco raising in the traditional areas was secure under the protection of the monopoly law. The decrease that followed reveals that the profit of tobacco raising was cut owing to the high wages caused by the growth of industries in response to the World War I, as well as the scarcity of labour which was attracted to other cash crops. The last stage of stability may be explained by the enforcement of mainten ance policies, and the fact that tobacco regained its relative value in this period of economic depression. (4) The decrease in tobacco production just before World War II, and wartime increase of demand for tobacco stimulated the study for the cold-proof variety. A new area of tobacco growing was realized by “Barley” variety in the northern part of the prefecture, greatly changing the distribution of the growing areas in Iwate Prefecture. (5) Thus, the tobacco growing areas in the prefecture can roughly be divided into the traditional Ohazama and Higashi-Iwai areas and newly born northern Iwate areas. It can be pointed out that the change in farm economy in response to the depression was a factor in forming such distribution. The most important factor, however, is the change of the government policy of the Tobacco Monopoly, and this also characterizes the development of tobacco growing in Japan as a whole.