Institutional Management and Structural Limitations of Land Improvement under the Japanese Government General of Korea : Formation and Disintegration of the ‘Agency System’

In the 1920s, the land improvement projects carried out by the Land Improvement Department of the Government-General of Korea, the Land Improvement Department of the Oriental Development Company, and the Chosun Land Improvement Corporation were a new approach implemented through mutual consultation among the three organizations to ensure efficient execution. The Land Improvement Department of the Government-General of Korea played a supervisory and promotional role for land improvement projects carried out by irrigation associations or delegated companies. The Land Improvement Department of the Oriental Development Company and the Chosun Land Improvement Corporation were established to meet the need for agencies to carry out land improvement projects smoothly under the Second Rice Production Increase Plan. Among them, the Oriental Development Company's Land Improvement Department had already secured the opportunity to engage in full-scale land improvement projects as desired since the implementation of the First Rice Production Increase Plan. Although it never materialized in practice, it even envisioned immigration projects through land improvement. The Chosun Land Improvement Corporation represented both the acceptance of private sector demands for the establishment of a land improvement company and the incorporation of private capital and technical expertise. However, Korean farmers—particularly irrigation associations—found that the introduction of a new intermediary step in the form of delegated agencies for irrigation and drainage construction, which had not been necessary before, merely resulted in increased costs, namely service fees. There was a growing sense that this delegation system was being unnecessarily imposed by government authorities. The various negative side effects of this delegated company system ultimately became one of the factors accelerating the discontinuation of the Second Rice Production Increase Plan, especially amid falling rice prices and other conditions in Japan.