SG/3043 Week 9: Agriculture and the Rural Environment

Lecture Outline:

• 1) Rural landscapes: factories, farms, fields and forests
• 2) The basis of the postwar agricultural landscape
• 3) Reinventing the rural as playground
• 4) Case study of leisure-based diversification: The rural allotment

Key Concepts:

Contrast between the settled, agricultural countryside (14% of Japan's land) and the unsettled, mountainous 77% beyond; the desakota landscape of the settled countryside; expansion of settled landscape through rural tourism (eg by golf courses); problem of defining a sensible role for the settled countryside suitable for the 21st century; functions of rural areas (food, supply of labour and land for industry, space for recreation and conservation) high standard of living of farmers underpinned by subsidy and trade distortions; the producer price regime for rice; illusory food security and maintaining rural incomes at urban levels for political ends; rationale for small-scale agricultural technology; importance of part-time farming; problems of diversification schemes; structure of Japanese farm landholding; subdivision and fragmentation of holdings; reluctance to rent out or sell land; role of agricultural cooperative movement; implications of rapid aging of farm population; importance of domestic tourism in redefining function of rural Japan, manufacturing tourist attractions; the Resort Law of 1987 and corporate involvement in rural leisure provision; Premier Takeshita's ichi-oku-en (¥100m) grants and the mura okoshi "village revitalisation" movement; Moon on how nature has been "appropriated and transformed" in the Japanese village revitalisation movement; Graburn and the role of growing nostalgia for furusato "old/home village" culture; consequent generation of real friction between rural and urban values (cf Knight); case study of the Japanese rural allotment.

Revision Questions:

1. In what ways is the Japanese rural environment being modified to serve new urban needs?

2. Examine the roles of policy and technology in maintaining a postwar Japanese agricultural landscape dominated by rice.

3. Account for the emergence and characteristics of the Japanese rural allotment.

Recommended Reading:

Nelson HH Graburn, "Work and play in the Japanese countryside". In: Sepp Linhart and Sabine Frühstück (eds), The Culture of Japan as seen through its Leisure. Albany: SUNY, 1998, Chapter 10, pp. 195-212.

John Knight, "Rural kokusaika: Foreign motifs and village revival in Japan". Japan Forum, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1993, pp. 203-216.

John Knight, "The soil as teacher: Natural farming in a mountain village". In: Pamela J Asquith and Arne Kalland (eds.), Japanese Images of Nature. Richmond: Curzon, 1997, pp. 236-256.

Okpyo Moon, "Marketing nature in rural Japan". In: Pamela J Asquith and Arne Kalland (eds.), Japanese Images of Nature. Richmond: Curzon, 1997, Chapter 12, pp. 221-235.

Richard Wiltshire, "Rural Development and Processes of Agricultural Change in Japan". In: Keith Hoggart (ed.), Agricultural Change, Environment, Economy: Essays in Honour of WB Morgan. London: Mansell, 1992, Chapter 3, pp. 49-67.

Richard Wiltshire, David Crouch and Ren Azuma, "Contesting the plot: Environmental politics and the urban allotment garden in Britain and Japan". In: Philip Stott and Sian Sullivan (eds.), Political Ecology: Power, Myth and Science. London: Edward Arnold, 2000, Chapter 9, pp. 203-217.

Richard Wiltshire and Ren Azuma, "Rural allotments and sustainable development: A Japanese perspective". Paper Presented at the Conference People, Land and Sustainability: New Directions in Community Gardening held at the University of Nottingham, September 13-16 2000 (available on the web at http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.wiltshire/pls.htm)