Paper short abstract:

This paper examines cotton cultivation policies in colonial Korea to explore the changing rural economy. I highlight the role of semi-governmental organizations (SGOs) as a vehicle for colonial interventions in agriculture to change production practices and link Korean farmers to global markets.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines colonial efforts to expand cotton cultivation in Korea in order to explore one of the fundamental transformations of the rural economy—the introduction of semi-governmental organizations (SGOs) as a method for government intervention in agricultural production. While SGOs have been recognized within the “colonial corporatism” that emerged in response to the 1930s rural crisis, a focus on cotton cultivation reveals that SGOs featured prominently in many other colonial policies. Acting as the major vehicle for state intervention, semi-governmental cotton cultivation associations (J. mensaku kumiai; K. myŏnjak chohap) distributed seeds, fertilizers, and credit to farmers; oversaw the cultivation of cotton through field inspections and visits from agricultural technicians; and managed the sale and distribution of the cotton crop, setting prices and mediating between buyers and sellers of cotton. In enacting imperial policies at the local level, cotton associations aimed to structure every aspect of cotton cultivation.

In examining cotton cultivation, this paper presents a fresh perspective of the broader transformations of the Korean rural economy under colonial rule. Although previous research has focused on rice cultivation and the Program to Increase Rice Production (PIRP) as emblematic of exploitative colonial policies, a focus on cotton adds significant nuance to the understanding of colonial agricultural policy. On one hand, the colonial government’s ambitions were far broader than is revealed in the PIRP alone. Cotton policies spanned almost the entirety of colonial rule, in contrast to the temporally limited PIRP (1920-1934). Cotton policies also highlight the global context of colonial agriculture, as new species were imported, grown, and processed to meet the demands of the textile industry in competition with alternate sources of raw cotton in China and British India. Yet, cotton policies also reveal the limitations of the colonial government. The cotton associations established a capitalist framework for agricultural production that, though sometimes aligned with imperial goals, at other times worked against colonial policy as during the collapse of global agricultural prices in the late 1920s. By focusing on SGOs, I highlight the material foundations of the colonial rural economy, some of which would influence Korean agriculture even after liberation.