The population of the Metropolitan area (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba Prefecture) is over 32 million and 400 thousands. The urban area extends through a line of roads and railways radiating in all directions from the central part of Tokyo. The numbers of vegetable and fruit central wholesale markets are 9 in Tokyo, 5 in Kanagawa, 2 in Chiba. In Saitama, there is no vegetable and fruit central wholesale markets, but there are local ones. The majority of those markets are distributed within a 40km radius from the center of Tokyo. The number of personal-operated retailers is more in Tokyo than in the other prefectures. On the other hand, the numbers of bigger supermarkets are located suburban areas. Today, a main methods of trading at wholesale markets is a pre-engagement ordering system. The former auction system has become miner for buying local products. There are several reasons to be considered for this movement: (1) taking in advancing practices at a very high rate, (2) big producer managing organizations demanding pre-set desired prices, (3) big retail stores' demands for lower price, (4) small to medium sized wholesale markets being forced to buy unavoidably, the products with the price set by the big wholesale market. At a pre-engagement ordering system, some big wholesale markets (especially Ohta Central Wholesale Market) stand at an advantage. Presently, the price of the products from some big producers managing organizations are decided at the big wholesale market. Therefore, the other wholesale markets cannot decide the price on an independent stand, then the prices becomes the same as the big whole market. 25% of the handling volumes of the Tokyo central wholesale market are transported to 3 prefectures in the Metropolitan area. Many goods are distributed from the central wholesale market of Tokyo to the other areas such as Hokkaido, Tohoku and Chubu districts. 10 to 20% of the handled goods are distributed directly from producers' organizations to retailer shops at least including the wholesale amount of one carrying vehicle. The change of trading is caused by the extension of difference between big sized markets and small to medium ones. Therefore, the small to medium sized wholesale markets are very difficult to adjust to the rapid changes. The systematization of enterprises by big markets is now stagnating, because it is not able to creats a profit. The amalgamation of other area's market enterprises has found a new type of systematization. This movement is expecting to speed controled market area widely by same enterprise. As a conclusion, in the Metropolitan Area, the handling volume is unevenly distributed to the Tokyo wholesale market, especially the Ohta Central Market, under the advance of big super markets and the appearance of powerful producing organizations. The weakning or reorganizations of small to medium sized market enterprises is now inevitable under the coming pre-engagement ordering system in all wholesale markets.

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The purpose of this article is to try to throw light on the problems in the construction of the distribution systems of Fruits and Vegetables that support agricultural production and a continuous supply in Osaka. To achieve this end, it is necessary to take notice of the regional distribution function that play an indispensable part in the existence and development of regional agriculture. This study has shown that working as a group strengthens ties with the producing regions. This serves the purpose of stabilizing the sales amount of fresh Fruits and Vegetables produced in that region as they are highly demanded by supermarkets, not only for the Local Wholesale Market, but also the Central Wholesale Market. This result has brought about the following agreed upon steps for encouraging regional production: 1) to introduce a recycled container for assembling fresh Fruits and Vegetables, 2) to assemble by way of the wholesaler gathering up the goods directly, for the purpose of improving the conditions of the farmer's shipment, 3) to adopt a contract for cultivation, along with promoting a comradely group, in spite of the fall of agricultural productivity in Osaka. These trends are the remarkable changes necessary for the reorganization of the sustainable distribution systems of Fruits and Vegetables in Osaka.

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[in Japanese]

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With the implementation of market policy reforms the circulation structure of vegetables has drastically changed in China. In many big cities vegetable supplies are shifting from unitary form controlled by state-operated vegetable companies to diversified circulation forms dominated by non-state enterprises, including private markets. In Beijing, 90% of the vegetable wholesale markets are invested by privates. This phenomenon has attracted the attention of many researchers. This paper mainly discusses the supply forms and price formation of vegetables in the two biggest and representative wholesale markets in Beijing, Dazhongsi and Xinfadi markets, hence revealing the development of vegetable markets of these cities. In Dazhongsi market, we found four factors which affect the average level of vegetable prices: production cost, transportation expenses, profits of suppliers, and taxes. In contrast in Xinfadi Market, located between suburb and downtown areas, vegetables are mainly supplied by small farmers from suburban areas. There are only two factors which determine the price level in this market: production cost and profits of the supplier. Thus, the vegetable price in this market is relatively lower than that in Dazhongsi Market.

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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the structure of procurement of fresh foods by retail stores in South Osaka, where no central wholesale market has been established yet. In this study, the main stress falls on the finding of characteristics stemming from the store scale, and the form of stores as business enterprises. First of all, we divide South Osaka into two distribution areas: Senboku Wide Distribution Area around Sakai, and Sennan Wide Distribution Area around Kishiwada. The following results are obtained from analysis in each area: (1) The rate of procurement from the wholesale markets in the area is the highest in vegetables, the lowest in fishes, and fruits in the middle. (2) The larger the scale of sale is, the lower the rate of procurement from wholesale markets in the area is. (3) In comparing the rate by the enterprise form, the stores specializing in fresh foods have the highest share, the non-chain supermarkets come second and the chain supermarkets follow. The form that has the lowest share is the general merchandise stores, which use these wholesale markets only to procure the foods grown in the neighbourhood. (4) To the contrary of the South Osaka Markets, the larger the scale of sale is, the higher the rate of use of central wholesale markets established by Osaka city and prefecture. But this rate in supermarkets is higher than general merchandise stores, which mainly procure the foods without using wholesale markets. As a result, the increase of the share of chain supermarkets and general merchandise stores in the retail stage has made the wholesale markets in the area stagnated, in spite of a large growth in population.

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In Japan, the flowers and ornamental plant industry is one of the few growing agricultural industries. Especially the bedding plant sector has been growing rapidly. Based on the questionnaire data and interviews conducted mainly in the Kinki area, this paper aims to study the development of bedding plant districts, focusing on three issues: demand and supply, product circulation volume, and shipping. Demand for bedding plants, both for home and public use, is increasing. Consequently, their production rate is also rising. This is mainly due to the introduction of mass production technology and the establishment of a round-the-year production system which raised the production scale per manufacturer. In the Kinki area bedding plants handled by wholesale markets are at a 50% lower rate compared to cut flowers and pot flowers. Except for a few major wholesale markets, the dealing scales are generally small for bedding plants, with no established supply system which could help the producers cope with the great variety of the demands and with the variety in terms of desired quality by different customers. As a result, retailers get the products directly from wholesale stores while producers also establish their own distribution channels. Recently in large-scale wholesale stores, home-centers and garden-centers have increased their retail levels. This induces low prices on products and results in decreasing auction values at wholesale markets. About 80% of the Kinki area producers are dealing with wholesale markets and with other units of the available sales network. There are merits and demerits for each of the shipments, but most producers expect to sell at steady prices. To sell high-quality products for low prices, producers have to adopt correct production strategies responding to the customers' needs, and in the same time watch the balance between the existing capital and labor.

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Since the volume of imported meat has largely increased, it has brought a great influence on the Japanese meat market. There has been a great deal of research on the importing country's viewpoint of what kind of impact Japan is facing now. Of special note is the study of how Japanese meat wholesale markets and agri-cooperative associations are responding to imported meat. In fact, the structural reorganization is also progressing in the pork market of Taiwan. So the purpose of this study was to find out the changes of structure and function of meat wholesale market in the reorganization process of Taiwan's pork market, and also make the factors clear by doing a case study of the livestock wholesale market of Pingtong prefecture. The livestock wholesale market of Pingtong prefecture was reformed in 1990 and is now operated jointly by the local government and multiple agri-cooperative associations. In the same year, Taiwan became the greatest supplier of imported pork to Japan. Presently, Pingtong is the biggest hog-breeding area, there are also 13 pork packers in this area and 6 others in neighboring prefecture who are exporting pork to Japan. In order to expand the exporting trade, the major packers have advanced in the integrative management of this business and set up their own slaughterhouse. That is to say, packers make contracts with hog breeders or set up a hog yard as a daughter company. Consequently, the livestock wholesale market of Pingtong prefecture has been changed in its position and operation as follows: (1) The rate of total hog consignment from pig breeders is going down. (2) Copartners of the agri-cooperative associations whose breeding of pigs is stopping their consignment of pigs to the shipping cooperative organization of the associations. (3) The slaughterhouse of the livestock wholesale market is losing its business. (4) The recurring profit of the livestock wholesale market has fallen into deficit. Therefore, the livestock wholesale market is considering some measures to meet the situation, e.g. to pay a certain consignment bounty to hog breeders, hire the slaughterhouse out in off moments, to be a pork packer supplying dressed meat to the domestic market, etc.

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