The Agriculture System

[Tier-Group 3, 10th Floor, Reception Room]

The day after the summoning, Marie wasted no time briefing Dr. Ōba on the state of the farmland.

"Hmm. So both the crops and the farming techniques are on the level of the Edo period, then."

"Yes. The otherworld goods we can actually obtain are, as a rule, only library equipment and the free supplements that come with magazines. On top of that, since the dungeon monster is the Shiso (Asura), we can obtain fertilizer and pesticide meant for the shiso plant. As for seeds, we can get them when they come as a magazine supplement and the like, but tubers are out of the question."

"In that case, with no farm machinery and the fertilizer and pesticide both restricted, conventional cultivation will be difficult. The pesticides especially are designated for specific crops, and if we carelessly start synthesizing our own, we could touch off a catastrophe."

Conventional cultivation is the method used in ordinary commercial agriculture: labor is saved by machinery, while fertilizer and pesticide boost the yield.

"The only thing we can summon is the Shiso family's Asura, after all."

"Without machinery, far more labor is required, so a farming household can't expand the scale of its operation. That said, the fields and paddies are dungeon structures. Maintenance of the ridges and irrigation channels can be drastically reduced, so it shouldn't take nearly as much toil as the Edo period."

"We'll aggressively introduce whatever farm implements we can make from the materials available, but while we could electrify a foot-pedal thresher or a winnowing fan, things like tractors are simply not obtainable at present."

"We'll need to check each farm implement's 'function' and examine, case by case, whether it can be mass-produced in this world."

"Next, pesticides. If a disease or pest spreads through the rice we mean to sell, or through the wheat that's our staple, it could bring on a great famine."

Saitama's staple is wheat; rice is eaten only at festivals.

"The crops a pesticide may be applied to are designated, but the only ones obtainable in this dungeon are those for Lamiaceae plants, with designated crops such as 'Lamiaceae leaf vegetables.' There are some that can be used on other crops too, but naturally they don't cover the major ones."

Even misused, they won't "work better on humans than on the bugs" the way twentieth-century pesticides did. Still, there are side effects, such as a rise in resistant pests.

"That's exactly the trouble. The Lamiaceae have few pests, the only ones worth watching being the mint moth and the piggyback grasshopper, but with most crops we might no longer be able to tell whether we're raising the crop or cultivating the pests. To a degree we can manage with physical extermination, but cockroach-killing robots would cost far too much."

"Apples and peaches, leafy greens and cucumbers and the like are difficult to grow commercially without pesticide unless you have considerable specialized technique, so for the time being we should also consider keeping their cultivation to a household scale. For rice and wheat, cultivation techniques other than pesticide have advanced, so on average I'd expect we can secure six or seven parts in ten of the harvest."

"If we can secure that much, it'll be plenty for now."

"Conventionally cultivated paddy rice yields 500 kg per tan. There are various constraints, but from what I can see, with the tools and fertilizer a yield of 300 kg per tan, on the level of the early twentieth century, roughly two koku, is a thoroughly reasonable figure."

"Seven-tenths of the million chōbu is paddy, for a yield of fourteen million koku. With all million chōbu assessed at a nominal one koku per tan and taxed four to the lord, six to the people, the land tax comes to four million koku. So it goes."

"On paper, that's how it works out. With the dragon in the dungeon, foul weather can be eased to some extent; the rest is how far we can hold disease and pests in check."

"Mint Moth"

A caterpillar. It ravages shiso, basil, and the like. Because it binds the leaves together with silk and feeds inside them, it is hard for birds to eat and hard for pesticide to reach.

"Piggyback Grasshopper"

A distinctive grasshopper with the male riding on the female's back. Being sluggish for a grasshopper, the quick way is to catch it by hand and twist its head off, but you must not go saying things like "Die, you smug couple."