Suburbanization is very phenomenal in the western suburbs of Tokyo, nevertheless a. sizable area is still devoted to agriculture and the agricultural output is quite large. The aim of this research is to survey the ecological aspects of human occupance of the land which is well characterized by the ever intensive urban as well as agricultural use and also to analyze operational structure of farm households that has strongly led the study area to such a suburbanized occupance pattern in terms of interviews of farmers and various statistical materials.
Results : 1) Sale of agricultural land is quite limited because of rise of land price, resulting in the juxtaposition of built-up areas and farmlands. 2) Agriculture in these mostly built-up areas has the following characteristics : a) to increase labor productivity rather than land productivity, b) to increase household or personal income whether by specialization on arboriculture, lawn growing, specialized vegetable growing and chicken and pig raising, or by incorporating them in agricultural management so as to improve total agricultural productivity, or from other sources than farming such as management of filling stations, driving, schools, and public baths, and also as white color, c) to hold agricultural land as assets probably for a relatively long period, since the farmers here can get stable income from rent and apartment houses they have built recently, although increment of so-called socially fallow lands is to be seen frequently, and d) to ship out vegetables and eggs to nearby markets or to sell them directly at farmsteads. 3) It is urgently needed to conserve as much farmland as possible and also even to encourage farm management to a degree that the farmers are able to compete with ever-developing urban industries, otherwise the critical shortage of green open spaces in the metropolitanized regions will be further accelerated.
