Hand-Tractors in Japanese Paddy Fields

AN important and exciting development in Japanese agriculture is the increasing use of farm machinery, including a handtractor adapted to the tiny plots that make up a Japanese farm. Since the end of World War II and the ensuing land reform there has been a spectacular rise in the number of these tractors as well as motors, engines, power threshers, sprayers, and other farm machines. The tractors are like western garden tractors or rototillers, and are often called power tillers or power cultivators. They are equipped with engines of four to six horsepower and move on wheels or caterpillar tracks. The number of these machines has jumped from about 7000 in 1947 to about 100,000 today, and is still rapidly increasing.' The use of tractors on Japanese farms, which average about two and one-half acres and are divided into several minute plots, has generally been thought impracticable by both western and Japanese observers. An agricultural system based on small paddy fields, intensive hand labor, and high yields per acre does not seem suited to mechanization. Yet Japanese farmers with limited land and capital have

Agricultural economics · Agricultural engineering · Business · Economics · Tractor · Agricultural Systems and Practices · Agriculture and Farm Safety · Automotive Engineering · Energy, Environment, Agriculture Analysis · Engineering · Mathematics

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