Following the Second World War, a massive land reclamation project to
boost Japan's rice production capacity led to the transformation of the
shallow lagoon of Hachirogata in Akita Prefecture into a
seventeen-thousand-hectare expanse of farmland. In 1964, the village of
Ogata-mura was founded on the empoldered land inside the lagoon and
nearly six hundred pioneers from across the country were brought to
settle there. The village was to be a model of a new breed of highly
mechanized, efficient rice agriculture; however, the village's purpose
was jeopardized when the demand for rice fell, and the goal of creating
an egalitarian farming community was threatened as individual
entrepreneurialism took root and as the settlers became divided into
political factions that to this day continue to struggle for control of
the village. Based on seventeen years of research, this book explores
the process of Ogatamura's development from the planning stages to the
present. An intensive ethnographic study of the relationship between
land reclamation, agriculture, and politics in regional Japan, it traces
the internal social effects of the village's economic transformations
while addressing the implications of national policy at the municipal
and regional levels.