With the Winter 2024 issue The Journal of Japanese Studies is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Gabriele Vogt contributed a book review of Patricia L. Machlachlan and Kay Shimizu’s “Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture” (Cornell University Press, 2022) to this issue of JJS.
Excerpt from the review: “In Betting on the Farm, Maclachlan and Shimizu invite us on several trips to some of the farms that span rural Japan to this day. […] They share with us extraordinary insights into how those farms and the JA network that binds many of them together face the multiple crises that agriculture in Japan is confronted with. In the light of fundamental challenges, some JA have decided to embark on reforms, whereas others have not. In their book, Maclachlan and Shimizu identify criteria that can explain these choices, and they offer several helpful explanations to address the puzzle. […] We learn that while national-level politics in Japan seems almost immune to change, in some unlikely rural places there is plenty of potential for innovation and change.”
Vogt, Gabriele (2024): Betting on the Farm: Institutional Change in Japanese Agriculture. By Patricia L. Machlachlan and Kay Shimizu. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2022, 235 pp. (review). In: The Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 50/1, pp. 185-189. https://doi.org/10.1353/jjs.2024.a918587