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ABSTRACT
By using the genealogy of hybrid rice, Mahsuri, developed in Malaysia by Japanese agronomists in the 1960s, this article tells a story of agricultural modernization in Asia that challenges the US-centered narrative of the Green Revolution. Cross-racial hybrid Mahsuri’s parent is Taichung 65 from colonial Taiwan, and its off-spring is irradiated Mahsuri Mutant. By highlighting the deep connection between colonial development and post-World War II technical assistance, the role of intra-Asia networks in crop improvement programs in Asia, and the agency of postcolonial Asian nations, this article critiques the ironies embedded in the mutant rice and in the concept of development.
Acknowledgment
An earlier version of this was presented at the “Political Epistemology III” workshop at Max Planck Institute, History of Science Division, Berlin, Germany in 2017; and at a 2017 History of Science Society panel organized by Edna Suárez-Díaz and Gisela Mateo. I also thank an informal chat with Tatsushi Fujihara in Kyoto that eventually led me to this research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Nishio, “Tonan ajia nōmin ni shitashimareru suitō hinshu.” Naming of Mahsuri was probably meant to cut the curse of seven generations’ bad luck and crop failure told in the legend.
2. “Modernization and Development in US Foreign Relations,” Passport (September 2012): 24.
3. Dalrymple, Development and Spread, 1. 15. For a useful history of high-yield rice development, see Chapter 2.
4. Kochhar, Economic Botany, 99; Dalrymple, Development and Spread, 17–19; and Fujihara, Ine no daiōa kyōeiken, 170.
5. Schmalzer, Red Revolution, Green Revolution, Chapter 3.
6. For a more detailed account, see Siddig and l Singh, “Wide-Compatibility System for Yield Enhancement of Tropical Rice Through Inter-Subspecific Hybridization,” 158–210; Chapter 2 of Dalrymple, Development and Spread; and Pawar, “Botanical Improvement of Rice Varieties,” 303–308.
7. The acclaimed ADT-27, while long-stemmed and thus not high-yield variety like IR rice, became the basis for the Green Revolution in Tamil Nadu. Until IR-8 arrived in India in 1968, ADT-27 was the miracle rice in Tamil Nadu, promoted by the state government and widely planted by both large- and small-land farmers for its higher yield capacity. Robin, “Genetic Improvement of Rice in Tamil Nadu, India,” 56; and Mencher, “Conflicts and Contradictions in the ‘Green Revolution’.”
8. Yamakawa, “Mareshia ni okeru nikisakuyō suitō hinshu, Malinja, Mahsuri, Bahagia no ikusei ni kansuru kenkyū,” 41.
9. Nishio, “Tonan ajia nōmin ni shitashimareru suitō hinshu.” Also Dalrymple, Development and Spread, 17.
10. Nishio, “Tonan ajia nōmin ni shitashimareru suitō hinshu.”
11. Wicker, “Colonial Development and Welfare, 1929–1957”; and Hodge, Triumph of the Expert.
12. Blackton, “The Colombo Plan,” 27.
13. Mukherjee, “Indo-British Finance,” 232.
14. Akita, Krozewski, and Watanabe, eds., The Transformation of the International Order of Asia.
15. For example, United States Objectives and Programs for National Security (better known as NCS 68), presented to President Truman in 1950, made this policy statement clear. For a detailed discussion, see Cumings, “The Origins and Development of the Northeast Asian Political Economy.”
16. Initially, Australia strongly opposed Japan’s admission. However, by the early 1950s, Japan was becoming a critical market for Australian wool, and the Australian government decided that ensuring Japanese economic growth by letting Japan return to Asia was good for its trade. See Oakman, Facing Asia, 106–108.
17. Mizuno, “A Kula Ring for the Flying Geese.”
18. Between 1955 and 1970, Japan dispatched 2,242 experts abroad; about half of them (1,103) went as part of the Colombo Plan. Among them, agriculture represented the largest number, 307 experts. Kaigai gijutsu kyōryoku jigyōdan, Gijutsu kyōryoku nenpō 1970, 294.
19. Kaigai gijutsu kyōryoku jigyōdan, Gijutsu kyōryoku nenpō 1970, 234, 269.
20. Nick Cullather, The Hungry World.
21. Kratoska, “Rice Cultivation,” 282.
22. Rudner, “Development Policies and Patterns,” 93–4.
23. Matsushima, “Maraya inasaku to sono gijutsu enjo no taiyô,” 7.
24. Kratoska, “Rice Cultivation,” 304–5, 308; and Rudner, “Developmental Policies and Patterns,” 89.
25. Matsushima, “Maraya inasaku to sono gijutsu enjo no taiyô,” 6.
26. Samoto, “Koronbo keikaku ni yoru maraya no ikushu jigyō,” 93–94.
27. Kratoska, “Rice Cultivation,” 312.
28. Bhati, “Use of High-Yielding Rice Variety in Malaysia,” 189.
29. Kawakami, “Mareshia no suitō hinshu Bahagia no ikusei ni tsuite,” 80, 83–84.
30. Yamakawa, “Mareishia ni okeru nikisakuyō suitō hinshu,” 41.
31. Ibid.
32. Bhati, “Use of High-Yielding Rice Variety in Malaysia,” 195–197.
33. Nishimura, “Nepaaru no nyōgyō kaihatsu to gijutsu kyōryoku,” 366.
34. According to Wu Wen Hsing’s research, more than hundred graduates had moved to colonial Taiwan by the time of Iso’s appointment there. Notable persons for this connection between Hokkaido Imperial University and colonial Taiwan include Nitobe Inazō who was teaching at Hokkaido Imperial University’s Agricultural College before his appointment as bureaucrat in colonial Taiwan; and Oshima Kintarō who became the head of the Engineering and Agricultural College of Taipei Imperial University. Wu, “Sapporo nōgakkō sotsugyōsei to taiwan kindai tōgyō kenkyū no tenkai,” 89–90.
35. Fujihara, “Colonial Seeds, Imperialist Genes,” 142–3.
36. The name ‘Hōrai’ was officially adapted in 1926 by the governor-general of Taiwan, Izawa Takio. Meaning a mountain where immortal wizards live from the old Chinese tales, Hōrai was a nickname for the island of Taiwan.
37. Fujihara, Ine no daitōa kyōeiken, 120–1.
38. Dalrymple, Development and Spread, 1.
39. Sasaki, “Sakemai “Shinriki” no fukkatsu,” 222–223.
40. Oomameuda, Kindai nihon no shokuryō seisaku, 194.
41. Hirai, “Nihon shokuminchi ni okeru inasakuyō hiryō shōhiryō no suii: Taiwan to Chosen no hikaku,” Kōnan keizaigaku ronshū 53, n.1/2 (Feb 2013), 106
42. Oomameuda, Kindai nihon no shokuryō seisaku, 195.
43. Fujihara, “Colonial Seeds, Imperialist Genes.”
44. Fujihara, Ine no daitōa kyōeiken, 125.
45. Hirai, “Nihon shokuminchi ni okeru inasakuyō hiryō shōhiryō no suii,” 108.
46. For a detailed study of Nippon Chisso and other major chemical fertilizer manufactures in prewar Japan, see Molony, Technology and Investment.
47. Shu, Forster, Nakagawa, eds., Plant Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology, 10.
48. Eisenhower, “Atoms for Peace Speech.” The food irradiation program under the Atoms of Peace has been examined in Zachmann; “Atoms for Peace and Radiation for Safety.” Irradiation breeding was already being experimented on in the late 1920s (Lewis Stadler with corn). See Shu, Forster, Nakagawa, eds., Plant Mutation Breeding and Biotechnology, 1, 10.
49. By 2009, more than 3000 mutant varieties have been officially released, more than 800 of them being rice varieties. “The Joint FAO/IAEA Mutant Variety Database.”
50. Sigurbjörnsson, “Induced Mutations as a Tool”; and quotes are from 375, 379–80.
51. Hamblin, “Let There Be Light … and Bread.”
52. Sigurbjörnsson, “Induced Mutations as a Tool,” 376.
53. Sigurbjörnsson and LaChance, “The IAEA and the Green Revolution,” 38.
54. Nethsinghe, “Pattern and Impact,” 21, 22, 25.
55. Creager, Life Atomic; Krige, “Atoms for Peace”; and DiMoia, “Atoms for Sale?”
56. China alone accounts for more than 25% of all mutant varieties officially released. China, Japan, and India are the top three Asian countries, and this has not changed since the 1970s. Mba, “Induced Mutations Unleash the Potentials,” 211–2.
57. Teruoka, Nihon nōgyō hyakunen no ayumi, 245.
58. Interestingly, Japan and Mexico resemble in this regard in that both countries chose to be the regional leader of the anti-nuclear weapons movement. However, while Mexico’s reasons were economic as well as its determination to be politically neutral, Japan’s geopolitical alignment with the US was unequivocal. Mateos and Suárez-Díaz, “We are not a rich country.”
59. The earliest mutation effort in Malaysia, however, was for rubber tree improvement in the late 1960s. Harun, “The Effective Use of Physical and Chemical Mutagen,” 111.
60. The institution changed its name to the Nuclear Agency of Malasia [Agensi Nuklear Malaysia] in 2006. https://www.nuclearmalaysia.gov.my/new/profile/history.php.
61. The history of the Canadian federal company goes back to the Montreal Laboratory, established in 1942, which partnered with the Manhattan Project to create atomic bombs. Avery, “Atomic Scientific Co-operation and Rivalry Among Allies.”
62. Among the four agronomists, Kawakami was the only one who mentioned Malay assistants in his report. Kawakami, “Shin hinshu MALINJA no ikusei,” 86.
63. Khalid’s publication includes Mutan Mahsuri: Baka untuk beras bermutu. For his profile, see “Mr. Hadzim Khalid, Appreciation Awards 2012.”
64. For example, Li, “Kindai Tōhoku ajia ni okeru kanreichi inasaku to yūryō hinshu no fukyū.”
65. Lumpkin, “How a Gene from Japan Revolutionalized the World of Wheat.”
66. Ross, Ecology and Power in the Age of Empire, 389.
67. Keishi, “Nihonjin senmonka niyoru suitō ikushuhōhō no kaizen,” 77; and Brooks, ed., Imperial Botanical Conference Report of Proceedings.
68. Quoted in Webster, “Development Advisors in a Time of Cold War and Decolonization,” 251.
69. Cullather, The Hungry World, 3.
70. Griffin, “Foreign Aid after the Cold War,” 646.
71. Masco, “Mutant Ecologies,” 522.
72. Also see Masco, The Nuclear Borderlands.
73. Wamishe, Cartwright, and Lee, “Management of Rice Sheath Blight and Blast in Arkansas.”
74. Mohamand, “Development of Improved Rice Varieties.”