Ogata-Mura

Ogata-mura is a village founded in 1964 upon farmland reclaimed from a lagoon in Japan's Akita prefecture that was intended to serve as a model for efficient and highly mechanized agriculture. In this work, Wood (Akita U., Japan) explores the process of Ogata-mura's development from the planning stages to the present, focusing on the ways in which village planning and settlement affected social and economic development, the impact of the central government's agricultural and regional policies on the community, and the ways in which Ogata-mura can (or cannot) serve as model for the future of Japanese agriculture. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Donald C. Wood is an Associate Professor at Akita University, where he has worked since earning a PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Tokyo in 2004. He is currently editor of the Research in Economic Anthropology book series.