This article explores the daily lives of Han Taiwanese farmers in colonial Taiwan, concentrating on the extension of technologies by Japanese sugar companies and farmers' harvesting practices. Previous studies of Taiwanese economic history in the colonial period have mainly focused on the development of industry or introduction of various technologies. However, the experience of farmers must also be examined, especially their daily lives, if we are to legitimately assess the diverse influences of colonialism. Recent studies of Taiwanese economic history in the Qing era have explored new ground by focusing on the food and the environmental background of Han Taiwanese farmers. Based on these studies, this article examines the agricultural practices and food of Han Taiwanese sugarcane farmers in colonial Taiwan. First, we consider the relationship between the extension work by Japanese sugar companies and the production and consumption of Taiwanese farmers in the 1910s. Reports written by Japanese engineers of Kagichō Nōkai（ 嘉義庁農会） are used to illustrate how the two groups came into conflict and the ways in which companies attempted to resolve difficulties. Second, we illustrate how potatoes, peanuts, and seafood were harvested and how fuel was gathered by sugarcane farmers. Harvesting was an important activity for Taiwanese farmers even after sugarcane cultivation spread in the colonial era, as it satisfied the farmers’ subsistence. We discuss specifics of harvesting during that period and examine the tension between harvesting and ownership, basing our explorations on historical records and interviews that I conducted during my two years of fieldwork in the southwestern part of Zhanghua County （彰化県）. This study is an attempt to rethink Taiwanese economic history from a perspective that accounts for the daily lives of Taiwanese farmers, using a combination of an elaborated reading of historical records and interviews obtained from long-term fieldwork.

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This paper investigates the food and livelihood of farmers in the Shimotsuke Province during the Edo Period, particularly with regard to rice cultivation, and giving consideration to the market economy, it serves as an inquiry into the transformation of the consciousness and behavior of farmers towards food. From the late seventeenth century, farmers in the rice-producing regions of Shimotsuke Province labored to grow rice crops not just for paying taxes to land owners or for personal consumption, but also as a commodity intended for commerce. This rice was sold across a wide-ranging area that included large markets in Edo, neighboring castle towns, villages, river ports, and mountain villages, and even far off port cities in Hitachi Provence. There was also a demand for rice from surrounding areas for use in alcohol and confectionary production. Eventually, a demand also grew for inexpensive rice for consumption among the farming class. Landowners put effort into collection and distribution, working to meet private sector demands and bearing the responsibility of distributing the rice product over a wide area. With the advent of rice being produced as a commodity came a significant change to the food and rice-cropping agricultural practices of farmers. They became sensitive and flexible toward market variations resulting from low or abundant increased crop yields brought about by periods of cold and warm weather, respectively, and responded to them proactively. In the early nineteenth century, when warmer climate conditions led to abundance in rice crops and subsequently, a recession from the decreased price of rice, farmers adjusted by reducing or even giving up their farming work, transitioning to doing various other occupations, thus being able to buy and eat rice and other extravagant foods. However, as this way of living progressed, farmers were seemingly forgetful of the Tenmei no Kikin famine in the 1780s; they did not take the necessary precautions against famine, creating a state of vulnerability for heavy damage in the case of an eventual food shortage. A short time later, there came another a period of famine from the 1830s (called Tenpou no Kikin) during the final period of the Tokugawa Shogunate. During this famine, the price of rice suddenly increased, leading farmers in rice-producing areas to return to the fields and resulting in their return to their former lifestyle with ample food.

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Tef (Eragrostis tef) is one of the world’s minor small-grained cereals. It is domesticated in northeastearn Africa and still cultivated as a food crop almost exclusively in Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, it is the major crop in these countries, because, despite its low yield per area, which is less than half that of maize, it is cultivated over a larger area than any other crop. Moreover, its cultivation in Ethiopia has increased in area substantially in recent decades. The significance of this cereal is difficult to understand from the perspective of modern agronomy, which privileges high yield, and raises the question why tef is important in this area. This article addresses this question by examining the case of the Malo people, among whom the author has conducted anthropological research. About 80,000 Malo farmers inhabit a steep mountainous area in southwestern Ethiopia that ranges in elevation between ca 1,000–3,000 meters above sea level (asl). Tef, which is currently sown as a dominant cereal in the lowlands between 1,000 and 2,000 meters asl, is cultivated using several unique techniques, which suggests that it was not introduced recently. However, according to local memory, the current landscape of its widespread cultivation is relatively new and has been estimated as less than 50 years. Several factors such as the introduction of cassava and other new crops in the lowlands have contributed to the recent increase in its cultivation. However, the largest contributor to the increase may be the adoption of the spongy sour pancake made from the cereal as its main material, which is an Ethiopian national dish commonly known as injera, as a local diet, following the Ethiopian Revolution in the mid-1970s, and its popularity among the people. Thus, the case of the Malo exemplifies a dynamics of development whereby food and agriculture are closely connected.

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