2005 Volume 14 Issue 2 Pages 20-28
This paper examines the role that is demanded of a wholesale market in ensuring that regional agriculture continues to exist. Recently, increasing globalization has led to food safety risks and interest in local agri-food systems and local food brands by Japanese consumers is high. In addition, interchange between cities and farm villages progresses and use of local farm products in school lunches is expanding. As the result, advantageous circumstances for the continuation of a Japanese agricultural system characterized by low-quantity, high-quality production is apparent. On the other hand, production technique guidance and sales promotion on the basis of customer needs, a direct farm shipping system which is difficult for senior citizens, and an insufficient support function for farm co-ops is also apparent. In production areas, wholesalers and jobbers tend to act based on consideration of the circumstances of farm families. In addition, the wholesale market plays an important role as a bumper zone for quantity adjustment and price stability, as seen in the case of raw materials supply for medium or small size scale suppliers in pickle production. Rejecting evaluation of wholesale markets solely as simple circulation institutions, it is necessary for policy to set wholesale markets as infrastructures which can contribute to the promotion of local agriculture and agriculture production toward food self-support in modern society.
