China and Inner Asia

Organized Panel Session

(1) - Economic and Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Chemistry in Northeast China before the Second Sino-Japanese War

The rapid development of agricultural chemistry in Europe and the United States, since the nineteenth century, has contributed to the formation of modern agricultural science, and also laid the foundation for a more rapid and violent environmental change by human economic activities. The agricultural chemistry industry was lead by Japan in East Asia. The Meiji government paid great attention to the development of agricultural chemistry in the second half of the 19^th century; whereas China accelerated it until the early twentieth century. However, regardless of the experiences of agricultural chemistry development in China and Japan, the northeastern China in the early 20th century played a unique role. As a new frontier for Japan, Northeast China served as a new arena for the implementation of modern agriculture, introduction of pesticides, and application of chemical fertilizers and other agricultural chemistry, by the Japanese metropolitan government and the Manchukuo government. Further, northeast China also provided an important market for Japanese domestic chemical companies and pesticide factories to promote their products. The modern agricultural surveys, agricultural policies, and agrochemical plants, constituted the basis for the implementation of a new agriculture. This paper attempts to explore the development and local applications of the emerging agricultural chemistry in Northeast China, in terms of the establishment of a sales network, the relationship between chemical selection and policy, and the localization of productions, and to discuss the significance of Northeast China’s environmental development, brought by the use of agricultural chemistry in the Manchukuo’s economic activities. 

Speaker(s)

• CH

  ChiaHsing Ho

  National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan