Japanese Food Management in World War II (1953)

This is a very specialized book about how Japan managed its food production and distribution during the second world war.

The book says a number of factors affected food production, including weather, the reduction in work force due to men being drafted for the war, the reduction in the supply of fertilizers, and other factors. The most serious was the loss of labor to the military. Whenever you take people who are experienced and put them into the military, and then replace them with inexperienced people, there are going to be problems, just as there were in the factories.

Some of the people who worked on the farms originally ended up going into war production factories to work, and thus there was a double drain on the farm labor force. The farmers worked in the factories since the money was better than they were making as farmers.

A lot of women took the place of the male workers but they were not as experienced in farm work.

The book says that there were delays in planting and harvesting at the proper time due to the labor shortage. The countermeasures that were adopted generally were along the lines of making the people work longer hours. Also, students and other people from the cities were used on the farmers, and this group definitely had no experience in farming. Still, the book says that “assistance given by pupils was considered quite valuable.”

The main food was rice, but as the war went on the rice began to be supplemented (almost replaced, actually), by things like sweet and white potatoes.

There was a 50% reduction in fish catch during the war, due to a shortage of fishing supplies and fuel oil.As far as the amount of food actually produced in Japan itself during the war, the supply remained fairly stable (although it changed from almost all rice to rice plus sweet potatoes and white potatoes.). The problem in food supply was with the food that was imported which, in 1945, fell to 10% of the pre-war level of imports. This, coupled with the decline in the fish catch, is what contributed the most to the shortage of food overall in Japan late in the war.

One thing that was used to help the rice supply was to cut down “nonessential” uses of rice. The use of rice for sake was cut by around 70%. The distribution of food to restaurants was cut back as most restaurants ended up being closed.

Sugar production was targeted for an increase so it could be used to make alcohol which was an additive for aviation fuel.

Vegetable and fruit supplies decreased during the last two years of the war, vegetables by around 30%, fruits by around 43%.

”The diet of the average Japanese, which contained little margin of safety even before the war, deteriorated appreciably with respect to both quantity and quality.”

The book says that there was “social ostracism” for those who bought from black market sources, but other books I've read tended to indicate that just about everybody was buying from the black market near the end of the war.

A statistical proof that there was food shortages in the cities is provided by statistics from the Ministry of Education which compared the weight and height of schoolchildren in the cities with those in the rural area. Between 1941and 1945 city schoolchildren were found to be shorter and weigh less than their age contemporaries in the rural areas, and the differences got worse as the war went on.

Another thing the book points out is that food was rationed and that some of food that did get to people was in poor condition (due to poor storage and transportation facilities, apparently).

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