Reversing Pressures: Farmers’ Approaches towards an Environmentally Friendly Society in Ogata, Japan

Introduction In Japan, barely 20% of marketed rice is organic or semi-organic1) fields in 2001 (MAF, 2002), and only a handful of local governments are planning to introduce cost sharing incentives for environmentally friendly agriculture. However, in Ogata Village in the Northern prefecture of Akita, Japan (Fig 1), 80% of the rice is organic or semi-organic, according to a 1998 Akita Agricultural College survey (Fig 2). This outstanding figure was realized through Ogata farmers’ unremitting struggles to overcome the economic, political, and social pressures that mounted over 30 years of settlement on Ogata’s newly reclaimed land. Ogata sits on what used to be Hachiro-ko (Lake Hachiro). It is now a distinctive geographic feature, a “closed w ater system” that includes the remnants of Lake Hachiro, irrigation channels, and river systems of the surrounding area. This paper will look at two distinctive Ogata grassroots movements. One played a role in creating an environmentally-friendly farming society. Another, Ogata Environment Creation 21 (OEC21), promises a n ew era of environment-centered thinking combined with agricultural industry support.