SHIROSHI NASU was born in Tokyo on dune 11, 1888, the third son of Hatsumi Nasu, a former Samurai who had become a well-to-do manufacturer of medicines. His mother was a devout Buddhist, a woman of few words who did many charitable works quietly. She was also an ardent lover of nature. Her influence inculcated in the young NASU a concern for those less fortunate than himself, and a love for the outdoors.

While attending the First Higher School (College Preparatory) in Tokyo, 1905-1908, he was greatly influenced by the principal, Dr. Inazo Nitobe, an outstanding agriculturalist and an exponent of international cooperation. NASU was also impressed by Russian writers, like Tolstoy, and particularly, by Tolstoy's philosophy of the equality of man, which contrasted sharply with the reality he saw about him, especially in the case of the Japanese farmers.

NASU was 19 when he determined to follow a career where he could contribute to society rather than seek personal gain. Japanese farming practices in those days were backward and outmoded; a career in agriculture, he decided, could be a vehicle for contributing to people.

In 1908 NASU entered the Agricultural Department, Faculty of Agriculture, of Tokyo Imperial University. Graduating with honors in 1911, he received a silver watch from the Emperor in recognition of his scholarship. His graduation thesis was "A History of German Peasants."

NASU proceeded on to the Graduate School of Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in Agricultural Policies (Administration) and Agricultural History. At the same time, he carried on researches on medium and small farmers' protection policies as a non-regular staff member of the Imperial Agricultural Association.

In September 1914 NASU was appointed Lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture of Tokyo Imperial University. The following year, by order of the Japanese Government, he traveled for two and a half months through the Marianas, Caroline and Marshall Islands to survey the living conditions of the islanders, and agricultural economy, and to investigate possibilities for development. In his report to the Ministry of Education he recommended introduction of a sugar industry into Saipan which was later done to the benefit of the islanders.

In 1917 NASU became an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Agriculture. In March the following year he was temporarily relieved of his teaching duties and commissioned by the Central Union of All Japan Raw Silk Industries to visit the United States and watch the trend of the raw silk market. For the next year and a half NASU lived in New York City, during which period he surveyed the silk industry in the United States. While in New York he also attended Dr. Giddings seminar on sociology at Columbia University Graduate School. Another highlight he recalls is watching President Wilson's Victory March in New York City celebrating the termination of World War I.

NASU returned to Japan in December 1919 and was reinstated as Assistant Professor of Tokyo Imperial University. In May of 1920 he was again sent abroad on government orders. For the next two years he studied agricultural policies in Switzerland, Germany, France and Great Britain. While in Europe he served as the Japanese Government delegate to the 5th General Conference of the International Institute of Agriculture, held in Rome in September 1920. He also attended the 3rd International Labor Conference of the League of Nations in Geneva in October 1921, as the adviser to the Japanese labor delegates. In his capacity as adviser, he strongly advocated the right of tenant farmers to organize. "So-called tenant farmers in Japan in those days were actually small landless peasants who eked out their living by hard labor on rented land," NASU explains. "The rent was very high—amounting to more than half of the produce—and for the farmer there remained no profit but rather miserable-wages. Their lot could only be improved by reducing the rent which might be accomplished by means of their organization."

Following his return to Japan in December of 1922, NASU was promoted to Professor of Agricultural Policies at Tokyo Imperial University, and received his doctor's degree in agriculture in June 1925.

Over the following years, NASU traveled widely as he pursued his interest in international cooperation in agriculture. He was a member of the Japanese Delegation to the 2nd Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations in Honolulu in 1927, and took an active part in the discussions on population and food problems. He was a guest speaker at the Norman Harris Wait Memorial Institute Conference on Population Problems held at Chicago University in May of 1929. Following the Conference, he visited Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the USSR before returning to Japan in October. He continued to be an active participant in the Institute of Pacific Relations, attending conferences in Kyoto in October 1929, in Shanghai, China in July 1931, in Banff, Canada in duly 1933, and at Yosemite in the United States in duly 1936.

The agricultural training centers he set up for Japanese young people at Ibaraki in 1929 and Nagano in 1938 continue to serve those communities. Despite his advanced age he still remains as president and takes an active interest in both organizations.

In January 1932 NASU visited Manchuria, primarily to participate in the Agricultural Settlement Conferences in Mukden. Following the conferences, he toured Manchuria to locate suitable settlements for Japanese farmer-emigrants, and later was appointed to the Provisional Council on the Agricultural Emigration for the Development of Manchuria.

In July 1938 NASU was granted leave from his professorship at Tokyo Imperial University to accept the invitation of National Peking University as professor emeritus at its School of Agriculture. The School, in a dormant state on his arrival, was revitalized by his appointment. Later, in 1944, he was invited to be Adviser on agricultural matters to the National Economic Commission of the Chinese Government in Nanking.

His own government too, continued to call on NASU's talents during these years. In November 1932 he was commissioned to the Central Committee for Rural Economic Rehabilitation. He was appointed a Counselor of the Economic Department of the Ministry of Agriculture in August 1935, and became a Counselor of the Planning Board of the Japanese Government in July 1937. In March 1938 he was made a member of the Governmental Commission on the Problems of Creating and Upholding the Owner-Farmers, and concurrently served on the Central Price Commission. In February 1940 he was appointed Counselor of the Population Problems Research Institute of the Japanese Government, and also became a member of the Governmental Council on Farm Land Problems.

Following Japan's defeat in 1945, NASU was appointed Counselor of the Post-War Liaison Office, and later that year, was appointed Counselor of the General Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

NASU was slated to be the Minister of Agriculture upon the formation of the First Yoshida Cabinet in 1946. However, because of his work with the Nanking Government and his efforts to resettle Japanese farmers in Manchuria, he was placed on the purge list in September 1946 and required to resign from all the public offices he then held. During the next four years he accepted invitations from various organizations and "Lectured freely on rural rehabilitation and population problems from the scholarly point of view." In October 1950 his purge order was and in December 1950 the directive disqualifying him from teaching positions was lifted.

NASU was now free to follow-through on an idea he had been developing since the end of the war. As Japanese farmers attempted to rehabilitate their farms, he saw them going back to the only practices they knew—antiquated methods that enabled them to eke out a bare living. His idea was to send them as trainees to the United States where they would learn new farming practices and build people-to-people friendships based on "grass roots" contacts and mutual understanding. He began negotiations with the Governor of California regarding the possibility of sending Japanese farming youths to California.

While the program began with one country, NASU saw its world-wide potential. It was formally inaugurated January 28, 1952, in Tokyo, as Kokusai Noyukai, The Association for International Collaboration of Farmers, with NASU as President. His beliefs are directly reflected in the objectives set forth in the inaugural document:

"The problems connected with maintenance and development of agriculture in most countries cannot very often be solved by purely domestic means. On the contrary, approaches from an international point of view are often needed for their proper solution. Needless to say, international trade in agricultural commodities affects the shape of agriculture in the exporting and importing countries. Again, the whole economic and political structure of any nation will be influenced more or less by changes in the capacity of the agriculture to absorb the farm population, or by rise and fall in the standard of living of its farm population. Thus eventually these changes will affect the international relationships of that country, and vice versa. . . .

"No national boundary can handicap the interchange of agricultural technique, and no feeling of enmity toward each other exists in the hearts of farmers. Nay, they are rather destined to become united in their efforts to improve their living conditions, to command the respect of non-farmers toward agriculture, and to do their share for the onward march of human civilization.

"Some steps of cooperation in that direction have been taken by governments or by rural leaders, but not by the farmers themselves. To fill that gap is the akin of this Association. It is with the utmost earnest desire to, do our share for the sake of the world's peace, that we establish herewith the Association for International Collaboration of Farmers."

About 35 trainees were sent to California during the first year of the program By 1967 some 1,600 young Japanese farmers had been trained abroad and the host countries included Denmark Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, and Holland. The continuing effect of the program is indicated by the fact that 85 per cent of returned trainees are directly engaged in agriculture and another 15 per cent are serving as farm advisors. Over the past five years, the program has also been exporting its agricultural know-how by sending returned trainees to developing countries in Asia and Africa, and 25 young farmers from Korea, Formosa and Brazil have been given training in Japan through Kokusai Noyukai.

Under the Overseas Farming Program, young capable farmers are selected for training abroad. They learn while working. The period of their practical training is one year. During the farmers' leisure seasons they are given chances to attend schools and to visit various spots of agricultural interest. It was early decided that the trainees programs should be confined to those which might contribute to the modernization of Japanese agriculture. Since 1957 the farms used for training have been restricted to those producing rice, fruits, flowers, vegetables, livestock and poultry.

In 1962, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Program, the Association conducted a comprehensive survey to learn the effect of the program on the activities of the returned trainees. In terms of increased productivity, they found that from an average yearly income of 700,000 yen prior to their foreign training income soared up to 1.3 million yen after their return. This achievement, the survey report notes, "points to the gradual but steady approach of Japanese farmers to the general level of middle-class farmers in European countries."

More than 20 per cent of the returned trainees had enlarged their farms and improved management so that their financial situation became more stable and independent. They have been actively introducing machinery suitable to their scale of farm management. One returnee, for example, purchased a "speed sprayer" such as he had seen used in California. Using it on his extensive apple orchards, he was able to grow apples without conventional paper or plastic covers, resulting in more output and less cost. This in itself is considered an epoch-making reform in the apple growing process. Now Japanese agriculture is moving rapidly toward higher mechanization. Powered ploughs, small tractors, trailers, powered sprayers, electric milkers and three-wheeled motor cars are widely utilized. The returned trainees are using and demonstrating new methods of drainage, artificial insemination to improve livestock herds and cross breeding native Japanese cattle with Jersey and Holstein breeds to achieve better milk production. Most have kept up their contacts with their host farmers, and frequently exchange varieties of seeds and saplings for mutual help.

One of the greatest expectations of the trainees was to learn and understand democracy at work. Seeing firsthand how deeply the idea of democracy is implanted in the minds of Americans, and how parents strive to maintain their democratic tradition- through the education of the coming generations, was, they felt, a most valuable experience in the United States.

Perhaps most important, the survey report notes, was that the trainees found farmers everywhere are hard working and cherish common affection for the crops and livestock they keep. "One might go so far as to say that this discovery might be the greatest gain—the discovery that industrious labor with the sweat of the brow and the deep attachment to their crops and cattle are common to all farmers. . . . It was entirely through this fraternal feeling that the Japanese trainees could make themselves heartily understood in spite of the apparent barrier of linguistic difficulties."

One of the principal speakers at the Tenth Anniversary celebration was Edwin O. Reischauer, United States Ambassador to Japan. The Ambassador summed up the accomplishment of the Overseas Trainees Program this way: "This exchange of 'know-how' has been of benefit to agriculture in both countries. At the same time, perhaps the most lasting value of the Trainees Program has been its contribution to mutual understanding between the rural populations of our two countries. In getting to know each other through daily association and discussion, your young farmers and our farmers have learned the great truth that free peoples, however much they may differ in culture and history, basically have much more in common than they have points of issue. The prospects for world peace are greatly enhanced by such people-to-people contact and the understanding that results."

Other visiting dignitaries, too, spoke to this theme of developing understanding and friendship, and paid tribute to "all who had the foresight to bring this significant program into being," singling out for particular notice "Dr SHIROSHI NASU, founder of the program and the first president of the Association for International Collaboration of Farmers, Japan."

In November 1957 NASU was appointed Ambassador of Japan to India and Nepal, where he served until May 1961. As an agricultural economist, Ambassador NASU was keenly interested in rice production in India. Shortly after his arrival, he found an opportunity to turn his interest to practical use. He learned of four young Japanese, all younger sons of farm families, who had traveled to India some lime before as: Buddhist missionaries. They had fallen out with their leader and had resolved to cease being missionaries. They had learned to speak Hindi and were searching for some way to remain in India.

It was suggested that they should settle on a small plot of land in the district of Saharanpur, on the Grand trunk Road about 110 miles north of New Delhi in Uttar Pradesh. Here they could set up a model Japanese rice farm under the Joint sponsorship of the Japanese Embassy and the Government of India.

Funds for the project were meager; the Embassy had to pay the four farmers out of its public relations budget. Farm implements failed to arrive on schedule, the plot of land—three acres—was too small to be typical of Indian farming conditions, irrigation facilities and seed stocks were substandard, and there were many other difficulties. Yet, in two years' time, the four Japanese on their three-acre plot had quadrupled the average rice yield for the area.

Their fame spread through the district and the state, and visitors even began to come from other parts of India to look at what they were doing. Their annual reports were transmitted by the Japanese Embassy to the Indian Ministry of Food and Agriculture, which printed and distributed them throughout the country. Many requests came for the Japanese farmers to lecture and give demonstrations, and their value was not entirely confined to agriculture techniques. "On one occasion," their report reads, "we talked for about two hours on village life in Japan, the marriage problem in the villages, compulsory education and land reform."

As a result of this successful demonstration, negotiations were initiated with the Japanese Embassy to set up demonstration farms in the major rice-growing Indian states. Two Japanese Survey Teams visited India during 1961 and as a result of their reports the Government of India signed an agreement with the Government of Japan on April 23, 1962, under which four demonstration farms, ranging in area from 10 to 25 acres, were set up in Nadia in the State of West Bengal, in Sambalpur in Orissa, in Shahabad in Bihar, and Surat in Gujarat. Under the agreement the Japanese Government provided a complete set of implements and machinery for each farm, and assigned to each, four Japanese technicians. The respective Indian state governments furnished residential accommodations for the technicians and the running expenses of the farms.

The four farms were started in June 1962. Considerable preparatory work in the fields had to be done. Work during the first year was necessarily of an experimental nature, as the technicians tried to determine varieties of paddy suitable for intensive cultivation' and explored ways to adapt their techniques to local conditions. By the end of the second year, with the soil and water management practices and mechanization of operations introduced by the Japanese, the yield of Indian rice varieties grown at these farms was more than double the yields of local farmers.

In view of this achievement, the two governments signed a second agreement in December 1964, to establish four additional farms at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Mandya in Mysore, Ernakulam in Kerala and Kolaba in Maharashtra. The purpose of these farms, like that of the first four, was to demonstrate Japanese agricultural techniques and serve as centers for the field training of Indian agricultural technicians and farmers. This people-to-people program of model farms, pioneered by NASU, has since been adopted by the Japanese government as an integral part of its regular aid program for India, and is being extended to other underdeveloped countries.

As Ambassador to India, NASU also saw firsthand the serious leprosy problem confronting the country. Knowing that Japan, where leprosy was once widespread, had practically eradicated the disease, it occurred to him that the Japanese people could be of help to the people of India in their efforts to control leprosy. He discussed his idea with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who assured NASU that India would welcome Japanese assistance.

Coincidentally Dr. Matsuki Miyazaki, Japan's foremost expert on leprosy, sought NASU's help to come to India. As visa and currency regulations posed difficulties for private individuals, NASU arranged for the Indian Government to invite him. Over the next six months Miyazaki visited all the leper sanitariums in India and prepared a report—which was presented to Nehru—on what could and needed to be done. NASU then arranged a meeting with Nehru, scheduled for five minutes but extended to thirty because of Nehru's interest in the project.

Miyazaki's original idea was to set up a village hospital where he would live and treat lepers. Village cooperatives offered the land, but it was necessary to raise funds to support the project. Following his retirement as Ambassador to India in 1961, NASU brought his idea back to Japan, consulted with others, and the idea of a foundation to support the project was born. In December of 1962 the Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia JALMA) was established, with NASU as Chairman. He had repeatedly declined to head the Foundation, but others finally persuaded him of its need for his prestige and his good relationship with the Indian government.

Before leaving for India to negotiate further arrangements, NASU went to see the head of the Japanese Medical Association and the head of Infectious Diseases to ask them to serve on the board of JALMA. They felt that the center must do research as well as offer treatment and that it should have only the most modern equipment, manned by experts. They urged that the work be of the highest level so that the World Health Organization (WHO), which had not as yet done any work in the field of leprosy, would be convinced to do something along the same line.

NASU presented this approach to the Indian experts and the Indian government with some apprehension, as he was afraid their leprosy experts might feel offended. On the contrary, he found that they welcomed it.

The Indian government felt thee the village site offered by the village cooperatives was not appropriate, and offered several other sites. NASU, accompanied by Miyazaki, visited them and finally chose 100 acres near Agra, in Uttar Pradesh, in February 1963.

On May 30, a formal agreement was signed between the Union Government of India and the Japan Leprosy Mission of Asia to establish and operate a Center for treatment, research, training and rehabilitation in the field of leprosy. The Preamble to the agreement stated: "This project is to be implemented as a token of goodwill and friendship of the Japanese people to the people of India." In line with this, the principle was established that the Center's services should be free, and the Center, with all its facilities, was eventually to be handed over to the Government of India when and as deemed proper.

In December 1963 the late Prime Minister Nehru laid the foundation stone at the site of the future Center. In the meantime JALMA started a nation-wide campaign in Japan to raise funds for the Center's construction. To assist JALMA in carrying out its humanitarian project, a group of the nation's influential financiers and businessmen joined to set up The Society for the Support of Anti-Leprosy Work in India to raise funds for JALMA. AS NASU recalls, "the original intention was to collect only 60 million yen and the banks promised to help, but with the new plan and the need to build something artistic since it was in Agra near the Taj Mahal, it was decided to raise 300 million yen."

By now NASU was deeply involved. As he says, "seeing everybody work so hard, I had to do my share." In Japan, NASU notes, this project was not regarded as mere charity work, but more and more took on the form of a national movement, and the money needed was raised. Businesses, banks and civic organizations participated, as did individuals and religious and educational groups all over the country. Nearly a million school children responded to the appeal.

The Center began operation of some clinical services in 1966, and the formal inaugural ceremony was held on January 30, 1967. Standing in the courtyard of the Center is a bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi, contributed by a group of Japanese businessmen connected with the Indian Japanese Economic Committee. It was presented in memory of "the Father of India" because the Mahatma was so much concerned during his life with the eradication of leprosy.

In his address at the inauguration NASU paid tribute to those who had helped Japan in its efforts to eradicate leprosy many years ago. "For us Japanese," he said, "our efforts to help other countries overcome leprosy represent our hope of expressing gratitude to such foreign missionaries as Miss Eda Hanna Riddel of England and Father Testaweed of France who devoted themselves to the help of Japanese leprosy patients in bygone years. It is because of the help and enthusiasm of these people that Japan later was able to have proper facilities and techniques to deal with this dread disease. One way for us to respond to the devotion of these people certainly is to extend the same sort of help to other lands."

He also spoke of the effect of the project on the Japanese people themselves. "This project, aimed at helping India to eradicate Hansen's disease, has given the Japanese people confidence that a project of this sort should be carried out on the international level and with a very high ideal in mind. It is very significant that the new Japan is awakening on this: point at a time when the upsurging nationalism in Afro-Asian countries tends to make people too eager to pursue their nationalistic interests and make them lose sight of a more international viewpoint.''

Since his resignation as ambassador NASU has visited India almost every year in connection with either the task of setting up the Center or inspecting the Japanese model rice farms. He also participates in the annual meetings of the Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Conference, which he first convened in 1955 as the East-Asian Rural Reconstruction Conference, and which he served as its first President.

At the invitation of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), he was a principal speaker at the World Food Conference in Washington, D.C., in June 1963. He represented the Japanese Government at the 12th General Conference of FAO in Rome in November 1963, and was elected Conference Chairman. In September 1965 he attended the International Industrial Conference held in San Francisco, and delivered an address. At the invitation of the Brazilian Association for International Collaboration of Farmers, he visited Brazil and other Latin American countries in September and October of 1965, and became Honorary Adviser to the Brazilian Association.

NASU’s work has been recognized with such distinguished honors as the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure, awarded by the Japanese Government in 1940; the Distinguished Medal of Honor with the Breast Band, awarded by the Nepalese Government in 1959; and the Second Order of the Rising Sun, awarded by the Japanese Government in 1965. He has been awarded Medals of Honor from various associations such as the Japan Agricultural Society and the Imperial Agricultural Association.

He is the author of over 20 publications dealing with such subjects as agricultural administration rural social problems, Japanese agriculture, population and food problems, land utilization and small farmers protection policies.

NASU, now 79, lives in Tokyo with his wife Sadako, whom-he married in 1915. They have three children—one son and two daughters. His son is a business executive in Hokkaido, one daughter is married to an American and lives in the United States, the other, also married, lives in Tokyo.

His present positions include: Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University; Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; President, the Rural Rehabilitation Association of Japan; Adviser, the Association for International Collaboration of Farmers; Chairman, the Board of Directors of the Japan Peoples High School Association; Adviser, the International Section of the Central Union of the All Japan Agricultural Cooperatives; Chairman, the Board of Directors of the Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia; and member of various councils dealing with overseas economic cooperation, migration and technical cooperation.

In his lifetime, SHIROSHI NASU has affected the lives and future well-being of successive generations of his countrymen. As a colleague at Tokyo University notes, "To the old generation, NASU is associated with agricultural reform and progress, especially with respect to tenants. To the young people, for his training program, model farms, leprosy work and international outlook."

August 1967 Manila

REFERENCES:

Agreement Between the Government of Japan and the Government of India for the Establishment of Agricultural Demonstration Farms. New Delhi. April 23, 1962.

Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws of Association for International Collaboration of Farmers. Tokyo. 1964.

Charter and Bylaws of Association for International Collaboration of Farmers. Tokyo. 1952.

India Centre of Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia. Tokyo: The Japan Leprosy Mission for Asia. 1967.

Japan Biographical Encyclopedia and Who's Who. Tokyo: The Rengo Press. 1964-65.

Nasu, Shiroshi "Fight Against Dread Disease." Address given at the Inauguration of the India Center, January 30, 1967.

Olson, Lawrence. "Japanese Interest in India," American Universities Field Staff Report. New York. (Japan: LO-4-'58 March 31, 1958.

______. "The Japanese in India Today," American Universities Field Staff Reports Service. New York. East Asia Series, Vol. 9, November 14, 1961.

OTCA and Japan's Technical Cooperation. Tokyo: Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency. ND. 42. Pamphlet. Undated.

Report of the Activities of the Returned Trainees. Kokusai Noyukai. Tokyo. Typewritten. 1961.

Second Agreement Between the Government of Japan and the Government of India for the Establishment of Agricultural Demonstrations Farms. December 17, 1964.