9722872 Veeck This award supports a 9 month National Science Foundation Dissertation Enhancement award for Dr. Gregory Veeck at the Hirosaki University Department of Agricultural Economics, Hirosaki City, Japan. Dr. Veeck's student, Ms. Ann Brucklacher, will work with Dr. Kensaku Kanda, Professor of Agricultural Economics, on a research project entitled, "Rural and Agricultural Restructuring in Aomori Prefecture, Japan: A Study of the Lives and Economies of Apple Growers." The proposed research will document changes in the economies and lives of apple growers in the Tsugaru Region of Aomori Prefecture, Japan. Using archival studies, interviews, and surveys, the research will examine rural and agricultural restructuring over the last century and will focus on changes in agriculture and rural life in the past twenty years in the Chunan District, the core district of apple growing in the Tsugaru Region. Historical research on the region as a whole will permit a spatial reconstruction of the apple industry from the 1870s to the present and will relate changes in the industry to locational factors and to corresponding economic, political, and social trends. Data gained from the study will be used as a framework for a broader understanding of contemporary agricultural and cultural restructuring occurring throughout rural Japan. ***
