ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the rights to farmland have been rearranged and negotiated through the adoption of the Farmland Banking (FB) system at the local level. The FB system was launched in 2014 as one of the key instruments for the agrarian reform under the growth strategy of Abenomics, which was established in 2013 after the long-ruling party regained political power from the historical regime shift. Data were collected in November and December 2016 and then in August 2018. The fieldwork included semi-structured interviews with farmers and attendance at two community meetings. In late 2016, the land improvement projects were underway in the four villages were yet to happen, but planned to be chosen in fiscal 2018 as prefectural official projects. Cooperative members secured a management right to their farmland under the collective responsibility for communal farming.
