Masaaki Okuhara (born 1955) is a Japanese agricultural-policy specialist and former senior civil servant. After graduating from the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law, he joined the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in 1979 and served as director-general of its Management Improvement Bureau before becoming administrative vice-minister from 2016 to 2018. He was involved in establishing the farmland bank system to consolidate fragmented farmland, as well as reforms of agricultural cooperatives, forestry, and fisheries. After leaving the ministry, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy and as an adviser to the Japan Agricultural Corporations Association. In "Nōsei Kaikaku: Gyōseikan no Shigoto to Sekinin," Okuhara explains how agricultural reforms are translated from policy proposals into institutions through negotiations with politicians and organized interests, and argues that public officials must accept responsibility for the results of the policies they implement.
