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Paper short abstract:

Japan’s residents have been coping with the effects of coastal land reclamation for many decades. This paper looks at the ongoing social effects of the country’s largest land reclamation project, which—notably—was not coastal.

Paper long abstract:

To boost Japan’s rice production capacity, the country’s second-largest lake was transformed into a 67mi2 expanse of farmland through a massive Dutch-style land reclamation project over two decades, beginning in the 1950s. In 1964, the village of Ogata-mura was founded within the empoldered area inside the lake, which lies below sea level, to serve as a model for a new kind of highly mechanized, efficient rice agriculture. Nearly six hundred pioneer settlers were brought in from across the country. Subsequently, rice demand fell, and the national government initiated draconian measures to curtail production. The village community eventually became divided into two major groups—those who complied with Tokyo’s orders and those who did not. The former continued marketing their rice communally, through legal, government channels. The latter became black marketeers. Neighbors were pitted against each other, police roadblocks were set up, lands were seized, and the goal of creating a harmonious, egalitarian farming community slipped beyond reach as individual entrepreneurialism took root among the non-compliant farmers. Only during the first decade of the current century did the village society reach a point at which it could be said to have overcome the damage caused by the long era of conflict. Drawing on 17 years of ethnographic research (1995-2012) conducted inside the reclaimed land area, this paper will review the social effects of the reclamation of Hachirōgata—primarily those inside the polder dam, and secondarily those on the outside—and consider the situation today.