ABSTRACT
In a recent article, Penelope Francks (2000) analyzed postwar agricultural policy in Japan, Korea and Taiwan in order to determine whether an East Asian model of agricultural development can be said to exist and to have played a broadly similar role in industrial development in those countries. By means of a comparative analysis of the structures of agriculture and exploration of how each national government has interacted with its own agricultural sector, Francks concluded that there are three basic similarities in the evolution of postwar agriculture across these countries. These are: (1) the fundamental role of rice cultivation in the structure of agricultural production and food consumption; (2) an active ‘developmental state’ which intervened in the farm sector, with the assistance of agricultural cooperative organizations, to support farm incomes and protect family farm households; and (3) the spread of pluriactivity, or part-time farming, to a majority of farm households.
