Wagyu breeders, reproductive technology, and the politics of the state: an anthropological study of human-animal relationships in the post-Foot-and-Mouth Disease cattle industry in Miyazaki

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25580185
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology
• Research Institution: Osaka University of Economics and Law
• Principal Investigator: ONO AKIKO 大阪経済法科大学, アジア太平洋研究センター, 研究員 (80648733)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 人と動物 / 民族誌 / 和牛 / 口蹄疫 / 宮崎県

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Wagyu calf breeders in Miyazaki have not been keen to accept, as measures to reestablish cattle production after the Foot-and-Mouth Disease outbreak, the government’s basic policies that give priority to economic efficiency alone and encourage producing average-quality beef and cutting down the nurturing period. Such tendency among Wagyu breeders can be attributed to the highly sophisticated Wagyu production“culture”of Japan, in which cattle producers, in particular calf breeders, are enchanted with intellectual“games”for“genetic engineering”on their own and other commitments in the community such as owning and/or bidding for supreme heifer calves in pursuit of fortunes and honour of the family.
Contrary to the ethnographic evidence, the media discourse has emphasised the role of cattle farmers to link“cattle”in the paddock to“beef”on the table, and consequently established the stereotype of cattle breeding as important but unskilled labour.

Free Research Field

人類学