The purpose of this paper is to examine the introduction and effects of "Internal Standards" in rice marketing of rice in Hokkaido, through a case study of Hokuren Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives. "Internal Standards" refer to the measurement of crops, such as protein content and amylose in rice. In Japan, "Internal Standards" has been gradually introduced in rice since the late 2000's, for brand-rice production for better price. On the other hand, Hokkaido rice has introduced "Internal Standards" since 1997, which has yielding improved quality and increased its sales for large-scale retailers in large-scale food industries such as food-service and processing. The conclusions are as follows. 1) On the one hand, introduction of "Internal Standards" has led to better selling of Hokkaido rice since late of 1990's. 2) On the other hand, "Internal Standards" causes many problems such as insufficiently collection of rice that met its criteria in agricultural cooperative's joint selling system. 3) When degree of "Internal Standards" is set high, it causes problems for selling for specific brands, such as "Yumepirika". If the price of rice decreases further in the Japanese rice market, "Internal Standards" will lead to many problem in agricultural cooperative's selling system. The government must re-construct support policy for farmers.

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The aim of this paper is to clarify the change in feed procurement of intensive animal husbandry in Mongolia, by using the results of research carried out for intensive animal husbandry farmers which is located around Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The following results were obtained. It is the situation that the feed supply system is not yet established in Mongolia. Moreover, self-production of feed is increasing in animal husbandry mainly due to the increasing number of animals and the quality of purchased feed either being low quality or too expensive. But, the low nutrition and quality of the feed and the lack of expert in feed production reflect the farmers' wish to buy the feed and focus on the animal husbandry. If the development tendency of intensive animal husbandry keeps rising, the government should direct its policies towards developing feed industry through actions such as supporting the enterprises specialized in feed.

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This paper aims to clarify the role of women involved in processing and marketing activities for improving their livelihood and revitalizing fishing community. A series of surveys was designed and conducted, targeting two women's groups in Oita and Ehime Prefectures that have already achieved self-financing and independence in terms of business operation. Both groups succeeded in improving members' livelihood through creating job opportunities and providing additional income sources. Economic incentive was given to fisheries households. Members of the groups tried to develop new processed products by using low-value species. There was much difference as regards marketing policy between the groups. The Akoyahime group in Ehime opened a store in a local shopping mole, selling lunch box and precooked food. The Mebaru group in Oita processed slightly high valuable local seasonings, and marketed department stores and souvenir shops. Little attention has so far been paid to the importance of self-independence of women's group activities, not relying on government's subsidies and financial support from fisheries cooperative association. These two groups provide examples of good practices in the improvement of local economy.

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The system and rules of wholesale markets have been changed to fit with the growing size of supermarkets and large scale intermediate wholesalers who deal with supermarkets. Among the buyers of wholesale markets, there also are small intermediate wholesalers and authorized buyers, who are often ignored when researches discuss the rules. The rules that have been revised in recent years may cause a loss of fairness in the wholesale markets. If we want to evaluate the change of rule and system of wholesale markets, it is essential to grasp how many members there are and if transactions are adversely affected now and in the future. This study analyzed the structural changes of buying side in wholesale markets including small-scale intermediate wholesalers and authorized buyers. The main results of the analysis are, firstly, that authorized buyers account for 34% of purchases of the city A wholesale market. Thus, wholesale markets are not in oligopsony by large-scale intermediate wholesalers. Secondly, some authorized buyers have not only the retailing function but also the wholesaling function, which was abandoned by large-scale buyers. These situations seem resistant to drastic change in the future. Therefore, we conclude that an adverse effect for the fairness in the wholesale markets by recent amendment in the rules are not small and will persist in the future.

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The purposes of this paper are to identify the effects of introducing mechanical grading in a strawberry packaging center on strawberry marketing, operation labor saving and farmers' economic burden. For those purposes, the Y sub-branch of the C agricultural cooperative and its strawberry packaging center in Saga prefecture were investigated. The Y sub-branch strawberry packaging center has a mechanical grading system based on sugar content, weight and outside appearance. However, the Y sub-branch did not adopt sugar content grading because of sugar content instability and the uniformity of the fruits' weight and outside appearance did not influence strawberry prices at the Y sub-branch. The number of the operation labor for the mechanical grading packaging center is about two thirds of that of manual grading packaging center. And the total cost at packaging center paid by strawberry farmers is almost the same between both packaging centers. Accordingly, mechanical grading has little effect on strawberry marketing but is very effective in operation labor saving.

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バングラデシュにおいて酪農業は酪農家が日常的に必要な現金収入を得ることを通じて、農村での生活の維持・向上を図り、ひいては農村の経済を発展させることができる強力な手段である。そこで国は、酪農業発展を目的に、1973年にバングラデシュ酪農協同組合(BMPCUL)を設立した。BMPCULによる参加酪農家への多様な便宜の提供の結果、参加酪農家は適正な乳価を実現・確保することができ、そのことを通じて、バングラデシュの酪農業は発展の基礎が確立されたと言える。以来、40年の長きにわたり、BMPCULが当国の酪農業の発展に貢献してきたことは刮目すべき事柄である。ところで、このようなBMPCULにとって今後とも組織を維持・発展させていくためには組合員の帰属意識、すなわちロイヤリティが極めて重要な役割を果たしていると考えられる。しかし、この点に関する研究はまだ行われていない。そこで本研究は、ロイヤリティの形成要因の解明を行ったものである。結論的には、ロイヤリティは、取引相手からの保護、BMPCUL(組織)の情報への信頼、組合の管理運営に対する不満の少なさ、組合員の長期の参加経験などにかかわる要因から形成されると考えられる。

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The purpose of this paper to clarify the adjustment mechanism between product use processes and raw material procurement processes of biomass through a case study of the bio-diesel fuel business. As a result of the analysis, the following points were clarified. Firstly, the bio-diesel fuel business is dependent on the non-market economy. Secondarily, the coordination between product use processes and raw material procurement processes has been done in two aspects. It is an adjustment in the non-market economy that depends on the local government and the use of in-house processes. Another is an adjustment in the market economy that covers transactions between businesses.

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In China, through land-right transfer, large-scale farming of grain production has been improving productivity and has become an important part of overall grain production. This paper reports on a large-scale farming questionnaire survey undertaken in Anhui Province, a grain production province, which yielded information on investment of large-scale farming and the situation of land-right transfer clear based on the results. In addition, the paper reports on the capital accumulation of large-scale farming formed by "concentrated farmland transfer" in an earlier stage and the forming condition of large-scale farming. As for the forming condition of large-scale farming, in addition to the promotion policy for the land-right transfer, it is very necessary to collect a huge investment to afford to buy the needed machinery. Thus, the farmers who have advanced capital accumulation from early times have become enterprise-like large-scale farms at present. On the other hand, the farmers who accumulate funds through the low wages of the part-time jobs and out-migrating work, can only expand the land scale by "dispersive farmland transfer". Therefore, the manner of land scale expansion is clearly different between the small size and the large size, although they are all known as large-scale farming. However, some of large-scale farming which is still small can also collect enough capital by "dispersive farmland transfer" gradually, and collect enough capital to expand the land scale by "concentrated farmland transfer".

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