The purpose of this paper is to study why the imported vegetables have been increasing recently and how the producing centers in Japan should cope with the imported vegetables. The conclusion is as follows. 1) In Japan, the imported vegetables have increased sharply since the middle of 1980's. The following three causes have promoted the increase: (1) Supermarkets have taken a large share in retail business; (2) Prices of the imported vegetables have depreciated as the yen has soared since 1985; (3) The vegetables producing power in Japan has declined since 1988. 2) The producing centers in Japan should cope with the imported vegetables as follows: (1) They should direct all their efforts to pushing bargains with supermarkets; (2) They should supply the differentiated vegetables; (3) They should raise the producing power through the division of labor and the regional distribution.

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In 1991 and 1992, import of fresh orange and orange-juice were liberalized respectively. The aim of this paper is to make clear, (1) the situation of import liberalization on orange and orange-juice, (2) demand and supply of juice, (3) meaning of juice processing in citrus industry, (4) the system for price support of raw material and (5) the effect of import liberalization for citrus industry. In consequence of liberalization, price of fresh mandarine orange and mandarine juice go down rapidly. It destroyed the systems of production, distribution and price lebel of mandarine orange. It fixed the consumption of foreign orange and orange-juice, instead of domestic one.

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The writer investigated the distribution, peddling areas and business characters of the vegetable and fruit peddlers in Saitama Prefecture during the easy stage of the controlled economy period. The results are as follows. 1. The distribution of the peddlers can be roughly classified into the northern Saitama group, the central Saitama group and southern Saitama group. Each group has a common basis of origin which is the formation of the production area markets as social condition and distribution of the natural levee zones natural ones. 2. The peddling areas of the peddlers can be classified into the following three groups: A) Northern Saitama group: peddling in Gunma and Tochigi Prefectures. B) Central Saitama group: peddling mainly in their own district, Kita-Saitama county. C) Southern Saitama group: peddling mostly in the city of Tokyo. 3. The business characters of the peddlers can be summarized according to the above-mentioned three groups as follows: A) Generally, the peddling in this area was run by petty farmers as a side line during the farmers' leisure season. B) The peddling in this area was run by relatively large-scale farmers as a seasonal business dealing mainly in special agricultural products. C) The peddling in this area consisted of two business styles in two areas. The former peddlers along Takasaki line ran it on a large scale. The combination of peddling in the local city and The city of Tokyo was characteristic of their business style. The latter peddlers in the Naka basin's rural districts, who were petty farmers worked mainly in the city of Tokyo.

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The egg production business in Japan is now exposed to fierce competition from foreign products. Egg product imports and overproduction have cause the downward tendencies in egg price in recent years. In the present circumstances, the difference in producer egg price is higher in suburban egg production than on farms in remote are as of Japan. The price difference is in excess of the distribution margin, which consist of transportation cost and profits. The residual seems to be marketing I (washing, grading, packing and selling) and marketing II (discrimination of eggs) which are also affected by feed and oter costs. The purpose of the study is to clarify several marketing activities on egg business in suburban egg production areas. The primary factor in the difference in egg selling price is clarified in accordance with regression principal component analysis, and analysis of elasticity of demand. The data used were collected by the Central Association of Livestock Industry (CALI). The main finding are as fellows. The difference in egg producer prices between urban and remote producers is explained by the activities of marketing I as the material funtion of distribution such as washing, grading and packing, while marketing II is something like discrimination of eggs, feed and other related buying activities in addition to the transportation cost.

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There have been extremely few researches concerning the seed industry though it has a position of important in agricultural industries and rural economy. The theme of this article is to present the analysis viewpoint for advancing an empirical research of the seed industry, through the consideration of functional and structural characteristics of the seed market. Seeds have the unique characteristic of being both the most basic agricultural production materials and agricultural products itself. Therefore, two aspects of seeing are thought whether should be the seed market seen as an agricultural input market or as an agricultural product market. Seeds are outcomes of basic research and breeding, and they exert enormous influences on the farm production processes and the whole other stages of agri-food systems including from other agricultural input industries to food processing and marketing industries. It is such value in use as an articulation of agri-food systems that characterizes the seed. So, it is necessary to understand the seed market as an agricultural input market, and to put in view a whole structure of seed business including not only the production and distribution processes of commodity seeds but the basic research and breeding processes. In addition, if we pay attention the actors in the seed business, the opposing and complementary relationships between public sector and private sector are perceived. And when we survey the development history of the seed market, it can be caught as a shift process from the setp of the public sector initiation to the step of the private sector initiation. From such analyses viewpoints, in next article I will approaches the problem of market reorganization by private sector (especially multinational companies).

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