RECLAMATION IN JAPAN

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27856, 3 January 1956, Page 12

RECLAMATION IN JAPAN

DUTCH MODEL TO BE FOLLOWED SEA SHORES AND MARSH LANDS SURVEYED (From a Reuter Correspondent) TOKYO. Japan is looking to the Dutch -model to win from swamp and sea thousands of acres of new land to grow more food for her expanding popular tion. Japan has about 13,350,000 acres of land under pasture. She has to feed a population of 88,090,000 —rapidly nearing 90,000,000. , New factories, houses, buildings, and military installations have taken up large areas of arable land in the postwar years. Reclaimed land could be used to balance this . loss. The Government is aware that it has little time before the population problem gets out of hand, and that present methods of land reclamation are taking too long. Using faster, cheaper methods copied from the Netherlands, the ’ Government in one current. project will reclaim more than 40,000 acres in five years. Formerly, this would have taken from 12 to 13 years and would have required heavy financing. Insufficient funds have delayed re- . clamation programmes, and in many cases the Government has drawn up plans which it cannot now ' realise. Loans have been sought from the World Bank to finance some of the work. In addition, income from the sales of American agricultural surpluses in Japan may be used. To increase farming acreage and food production, the Government plans to reclaim sea shores west of Tokyo. Projects now under way will push back the sea and marsh and add more than 75,6Q0 acres of new farm land. Surveys have discovered that another 188.659 acres can be reclaimed. Forests and hill slopes not yet being farmed have been marked for future cultivation. The Government will survey another 86,000 acres of sea and lake shores for reclamation possibilities. Better drainage systems will improve another 661,500 acres of farmland and 5,468.000 acres of paddy fields. Japan’s productive power from available arable land is quite high in the absence of large scale farming techniques. The average' farming family own an estimated 2.18 acres. Production of rice, wheat, and barley during 1950-54 was 79.8 per cent, of demand. To feed a growing population. Japan annually imports more than 1,000.000 tons of rice. Annual wheat imoorts are about 2,000.000 tons and barley imports exceed 600.000 tons.