Dear SSJ-Subsribers:



I am pleased to announce a Japanese Political Economy Workshop with Kaoru Kay Shimizu (University of Pittsburgh) & Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas at Austin)



Date/Time: June 18 (Tuesday), 14:00-16:00


Place: GRIPS(National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

7-22-1 Roppongi Minato-ku Tokyo Japan

http://www.grips.ac.jp/en/about/access/


Room: Room 3G on the 3rd Floor


Title: Cultivating Institutional Change in Japan


Presenters: Kaoru Kay Shimizu (University of Pittsburgh) & Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas at Austin)

Please join this workshop.


If you could please register by 17:00, June 14.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWJ33uUXUgRb8hve2LRO1PGiz76Rux14nYlnAefotR42ppow/viewform



Cultivating Institutional Change in Japan by Kaoru Kay Shimizu (University of Pittsburgh) & Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas at Austin)



Abstract


Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA) has long been a powerful fixture in the Japanese farm sector. For generations, higherups in the JA hierarchy pressured local farmers and cooperatives to channel minimally processed rice and other raw product into the system's distribution networks and JA's farm-input and other services to local farmers. But as rural populations shrink and age, farm incomes decline, and domestic food supply chains grow more diversified, globalized, and competitive, local multipurpose coops are under pressure to reform their production and marketing strategies in ways that do more to both serve farmers and conform more closely to market signals. What does strategic change look like at the local coop level? And why do some coops change more than others? We draw on institutional theories and examples from our fieldwork in Kumamoto, Nagano, and Niigata prefectures to argue that effective change ultimately depends on local factors, most notably the presence of well-organized communications between farmers and coop leaders on behalf of reformist goals. We assess the implications of our findings for the Abe government's agricultural policies and future of JA reform, and for one of agriculture's most beleaguered sub-sectors: rice.


Harukata Takenaka