IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB800955448

Postwar Reconstruction of Japanese Genetics: Kihara Hitoshi and the Rockefeller Foundation Rice Project in Cold War Asia (2021)

Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Volume: 30
Issue: 3
Pages: 176-194
Publication date: 2021
Language: English

DOI: 10.34336/historiascientiarum.30.3_176

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

International relations Societies; institutions; academies Green revolution Agriculture Rice and rice industry Genetics 20th century, late Japan Kihara, Hitoshi Rockefeller Foundation

This paper examines the post-Occupation reconstruction of Japanese genetics by considering its relations with both US postwar interests and Japanese wartime activities in Asia. In the 1950s, the Rockefeller Foundation approached Kihara Hitoshi, a prominent Japanese plant geneticist, as part of their interests in a large agricultural project in Cold War Asia, which eventually developed into what is now known as the Green Revolution. Kihara used this opportunity to bring in necessary resources for Japanese geneticists, obtaining a grant from the foundation to research the origin of cultivated rice at the National Institute of Genetics (NIG). When the foundation established the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines in 1960, Kihara was named one of the trustees. Using the IRRI network, Kihara integrated the NIG into the international network and reestablished Japanese rice geneticists' authority internationally through the standardization of rice gene symbols. With the foundation's support, Japanese geneticists reentered fields in Asia soon after Japan began restoring its diplomatic relations. In this article, I show that Kihara's postwar reconstruction effort was a continuation of Japanese geneticists' longstanding development of resources, networks, and authority in Asia since wartime. I also suggest that examining interactions between the foundation/IRRI and the Japanese rice research community broadens our understanding of the history of rice science in Asia, including that of the Green Revolution, whose narrative is often centered on postwar US interests.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB800955448

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Iida, Kaori; (2010)
Practice and Politics in Japanese Science: Hitoshi Kihara and the Formation of a Genetics Discipline (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022380/)

Article Hiromi Mizuno; (2020)
Mutant rice and agricultural modernization in Asia (/p/isis/citation/CBB249363163/)

Article Smith, Elta; (2009)
Imaginaries of Development: The Rockefeller Foundation and Rice Research (/p/isis/citation/CBB000932845/)

Book Marci Baranski; (2019)
Globalizing Wheat: Success and Failure of the Green Revolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB650890415/)

Thesis Iida, Kaori; (2012)
Practice and Politics in Japanese Science: Hitoshi Kihara and the Formation of a Genetics Discipline (/p/isis/citation/CBB001567400/)

Article Gabriela Soto Laveaga; (2020)
The socialist origins of the Green Revolution: Pandurang Khankhoje and domestic ‘technical assistance’ (/p/isis/citation/CBB758194610/)

Thesis Marci Baranski; (2015)
The Wide Adaptation of Green Revolution Wheat (/p/isis/citation/CBB084124000/)

Book Verschuer, Charlotte von; (2016)
Rice, agriculture, and the food supply in premodern Japan (/p/isis/citation/CBB875837872/)

Book Wood, Donald C.; (2012)
Ogata-Mura: Sowing Dissent and Reclaiming Identity in a Japanese Farming Village (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421795/)

Article Francks, Penelope; (2013)
Simple Pleasures: Food Consumption in Japan and the Global Comparison of Living Standards (/p/isis/citation/CBB001421533/)

Thesis Christopher Robin Jamie Craig; (2015)
The Middlemen of Modernity: Local Elites and Agricultural Development in Meiji Japan (/p/isis/citation/CBB491654362/)

Article Tsuyoshi Fujioka; (2016)
Japanese Lysenkoists after Lysenko's Downfall (/p/isis/citation/CBB185598354/)

Article Helen Anne Curry; (2017)
From Working Collections to the World Germplasm Project: Agricultural Modernization and Genetic Conservation at the Rockefeller Foundation (/p/isis/citation/CBB084334891/)

Article Ito Atsushi; (2021)
Japanese Market Development Programs under PL 480 in the late 1950s: Focus on Wheat and Rice (/p/isis/citation/CBB185787791/)

Thesis Smith, Elta C.; (2008)
Governing Rice: The Politics of Experimentation in Global Agriculture (/p/isis/citation/CBB001561390/)

Book Thomas D. Rogers; (2022)
Agriculture's Energy: The Trouble with Ethanol in Brazil's Green Revolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB172290706/)

Article Helen Anne Curry; (2023)
Diversifying Description: Sweet Potato Science and International Agricultural Research after the Green Revolution (/p/isis/citation/CBB369452091/)

Article Leo Chu; (2023)
With and against the Grain: The Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center and Modest Narratives of Green Revolution in Taiwan, 1963–2002 (/p/isis/citation/CBB265339233/)

Article Santos, Gonçalo; (2011)
Rethinking the Green Revolution in South China: Technological Materialities and Human-Environment Relations (/p/isis/citation/CBB001231671/)

Book Joshua Eisenman; (2018)
Red China's Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development Under the Commune (/p/isis/citation/CBB393548124/)