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Betting on the Farm
Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture
Patricia L. Maclachlan (Author), Kay Shimizu (Author)
9781501762123
Hardback, published 15 March 2022
258 pages, 5 charts - 5 Charts
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.907 kg
Patricia Maclachlan and Kay Shimizu take readers on a tour of farms across Japan to determine whether Mokumoku Farm is an outlier or the new normal in a farm economy buffeted by trade liberalization, falling rice prices, and aging farmers without successors. Betting on the Farm examines the changing landscape of Japanese agriculture from the postwar era through the post-1990s era of reform
Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), a nationwide network of farm cooperatives, is under increasing pressure to expand farmer incomes by adapting coop strategies to changing market incentives. Some coops have adapted more successfully than others. In Betting on the Farm, Patricia L. Maclachlan and Kay Shimizu attribute these differences to three sets of local variables: resource endowments and product-specific market conditions, coop leadership, and the organization of farmer-members behind new coop strategies. Using in-depth case studies and profiles of different types of farmers, Betting on the Farm also explores the evolution of the formal and informal institutional foundations of postwar agriculture; the electoral sources of JA's influence; the interactive effects of economic liberalization and demographic pressures (an aging farm population and acute shortage of farm successors) on the propensity for change within the farm sector; and the diversification of Japan's traditional farm households and the implications for farmer ties with JA.
1. Adapting to the Market: Institutional Change in Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA)
2. The Postwar JA Model: 1945-1990
3. Japan's Changing Agricultural Landscape: 1990-2018
4. Putting Farmers First: The Post-1990 Era of JA Reform
5. A Tale of Two Co-ops: The Processes of Strategic Adaptation
6. JA's Sanctuary: The Challenge of Reform in Rice-Centric Co-ops
7. Abenomics, JA Self-Reform, and the Future of Agricultural Cooperatives in Japan
8. Epilogue: It Takes a Village