Tōhoku region
Tōhoku was traditionally considered the granary of Japan because it supplied Sendai and the Tokyo-Yokohama market with rice and other farming commodities. Tōhoku provided 20 percent of the nation's rice crop. The climate, however, is harsher than in other parts of Honshū due to the stronger effect of the Siberian High, and permits only one crop a year on paddy fields.
Rice production in Japan
Phytolithic studies indicate that dry-field rice may have been in Japan as early as the Early Jōmon, about 6000 years ago. Wet-field rice agriculture was introduced into Japan between the Final Jōmon and the Early Yayoi periods. It is thought that this started the archipelago's agricultural revolution with its first intensive crop production. Rice occupies an emotional place in Japanese history, society, and political economy (Hsu, 1994).