To Ogata, the Land of Dreams
Ogata Village was established as a model agricultural village in Japan, aiming for high productivity farming using machinery on vast farmland.
Each section of the rice field measures approximately 140 meters long by 90 meters wide, totaling about 1.25 hectares.
Each settler was allocated 15 hectares of land.
Since the average farm size across Japan is said to be around 1 hectare, it is clear that the farmland here is unusually large.
The village opened its doors to people from across the country who were aiming for a new kind of agriculture, and a selection process was held.
In the first recruitment in 1966, there were 615 applicants for 56 spots, making the competition about 11 times more intense.
Even by the fifth recruitment in 1973, the average competition ratio remained a tight 7.2 times.
While more than half of the settlers were from Akita Prefecture, people came from all over Japan, from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south.
Ogata Village became a very unique place because the villagers were selected through this competitive process.
