In the 18th century agricultural villages suffering from exploitive land taxes became increasingly devastated. This was aggravated by the recurrent natural disasters that hit the Ryukyus, such as typhoons and droughts. In agricultural villages a poverty gap occurred between the rich farmer class and the poor farmer class. The poor farmer could not help giving members of his family away, practicing infanticide or selling out a member for a contracted term of labor. There were farmers who could not pay taxes and failed individually as well as entire groups of farmers who were unable to pay within the group units they were organized into.
The staple food of farmers in those days was sweet potatoes. However, even production of sweet potatoes, which have a short crop cycle and are resistant to natural disasters, fell and were sometimes not stockpiled in large enough supply. This caused many people to die of starvation. During these times of starvation, the local Sotetsu Cycads (Cycas revoluta Thunb.) were used for food. The Cycad is a poisonous plant related to the palm family. If processing methods are faulty, consumption can cause death. Food shortages in those days were very serious. The government of the Ryukyu Kingdom encouraged cultivation of cycad while giving guidance on methods for handling the toxins. The kingdom dispatched public officials to reconstruct the devastated agricultural villages, however the reality of agricultural village life was grim. Even the reformers had difficulty dealing with the poverty. This meant fiscal failure of for the government of the Ryukyu Kingdom as the economy was based on agriculture. Famine and epidemic prevailed in the Ryukyus during this period.
[Chronological Table of the Incidence of Famines and Epidemics in the Ryukyu Islands]
