For thousands of years Japanese farmers have constructed numerous agricultural facilities around the country in order to increase agricultural production. The discipline called “nogyo-doboku, ” or agricultural engineering, emerged when traditional engineering methods of Japanese farmers met with modern technologies. Throughout the 20th century agricultural engineering has contributed to the increase of agricultural production. It has been taught at several universities and colleges throughout Japan, and includes such common subjects as structural and materials engineering, hydraulics, soil mechanics and physics, agronomy, agricultural meteorology, and hydrology.
Meanwhile industrialization in postwar Japan has led to modernization and partial urbanization of rural areas. Such trends have often resulted in deterioration of the rural environment and changes in the customs of rural communities. This situation has compelled agricultural engineers to concern themselves with conservation of the rural environment and communities as a whole. Accordingly agricultural engineers are trying to form a new, integrated discipline which aims at the creation and conservation of beautiful rural landscapes. Agricultural engineering will continue to address new and challenging research themes, reflecting the needs of societies. Our discipline could in the next century be a basis for resolving difficult issues such as the global food crisis.

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