Even though the Agriculture, fisheries and forestry budget is increasing in the Americas and in the EU countries, in Japan, it is decreasing both in terms of percentage of the total budget and in terms of actual amount. The reason for this is that in Japan, large scale public works projects have put pressure on the agriculture budget. Within this budget, expenditure on agricultural public works has increased. Furthermore, amongst local governments, 71.4 % of the agriculture budget is spent on construction of public works related to agriculture. Budget distribution such as this brings in profits for the construction industry, but not for farmers. In order to address this situation,the following reforms are desirable: 1) Only building public works which farmers themselves deem necessary; 2) Focusing on a pricing policy for agricultural produce which supports farmers or secures income; 3) Making a distinction between the agriculture budget and the budget for building farming facilities; and 4) In terms of policy assessment, correctly assessing the function of agriculture and farming areas as public goods. Alongside these reforms, it is important to reduce the cost of production. The production and distribution of agricultural machinery, fertilizer,chemicals, etc. is contorolled by multinationals and large corporations. In order to cut agricultural costs,the national government's policy is to financially support the movement towards large-scale agricultural enterprises and organizations associated with the Ministry. However, what is really needed is public regulation of large corporations. Furthermore, enforcement of a production policy which reorganizes the market system for agricultural materials so that farmers are the main focus, and the financial means to support this system are also necessary.

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A large number of studies and sorting of the historical development process of livestock feeds have been done by now. However, these operation have been ended up at the construction period of newly established complexes in 1980s and no further studies have not been done. The development process in Japanese formula feed industry has changed a lot since the beef market liberalization. This report is to clarify the actual conditions of the livestock feed market in Japan brought by retrenchment and re-organization of the livestock management through management analysis and studies of the formula feed industry.

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After the World War n, Japanese fertilizer industry has gone through four phases, viz., the growing phase, the developing phase, the maturing phase, and the declining phase, over a very short period. In this sense, the course of Japanese fertilizer industry is similar to that of Japanese agriculture. Japanese economy recovered quickly after the World War II. Fertilizer companies also established large factories one after another in this period. Then the government pursued the agricultural policy to increase food production in order to overcome deterioration of the food situation. Therefore, the fertilizer industry made a great contribution to the agricultural policy and the development of Japanese agriculture. At that time, fertilizer industry was the biggest chemical industry in Japan. But this prosperous situation did not last much longer. When the government carried out the policy of controlling rice production due to its excessive supply, the fertilizer industry had to deal with the reduction of fertilizer demand. The fertilizer industry fell into decline, and the companies were forced to close some of their plants and other productive assets. Human beings, however, need food as long as they exist. So, agriculture will never disappear, on the contrary, it will develop in various forms. I think fertilizer industry can not be restored into its old form as a growth industry. The fertilizer companies should try to rationalize their management, determine the needs of customers, and develop new products with their advanced technological abilities. Indeed, the companies that take on these endeavors in the future will survive or may even succeed, in spite of the various difficulties.

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Pesticide use in agriculture requires appropriate information and regulatory oversight. As such, in many countries, the public sector as well as the agricultural cooperatives have played a major role in the farmer level dissemination of practical technology and information for pest control. However, many of the transnational chemical companies also have an aggressive involvement in the agrochemical market, appealing to their technological and marketing power as dominant pesticide developers and manufacturers. In recent years, environmental regulatory policy and commercialization of biotechnology (i.e. genetically modified food and feed) have triggered reorganization and consolidation in the global agrochemical industry. Some of transnational chemical companies have strengthened their presence in the fields of agricultural production in substitution for the public and cooperative extension programs; their strategy as an agribusiness being to integrate the related markets and control both local and global agriculture. Japan is no exception to this rule, though there are other actors such as general trading companies and indigenous pesticide manufacturers also influencing the market. In this thesis I have presented an analysis of the situation of the Japanese agrochemical market and have considered the implications for the role of public and cooperative sectors.

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A great many of imported fresh vegetables have been seen everywhere in Japan since the latter half of the 1980's. Most of them have been competitors with domestic fresh vegetables. Imported broccoli and garlic particularly have had a severe influence on regions where competing domestic vegetables have, and are now, being produced. It is significant for broccoli to be kept fresh. On the other, garlic can be maintained for a relatively longer time. The object of this paper is to analyze the trends and characteristics of prices of fresh vegetables, taking broccoli and garlic as examples affected by imports in the central wholesale market of Nagoya City. These two kinds of vegetables are shipped to the market similarly throughout the year, but beginning of the supply throughout the year, a way changing to the type of supply and shares of the imports are much different. Broccoli used to be imported from developed countries such as USA or Australia, and its quality is almost the same as the domestically grown. It needs, however, a cold-chain system in order to preserve freshness. The costs of its production and distribution are not necessarily low. Obstacles to importing broccoli are mainly technological innovation and exchange rates. On the other hand, garlic used to be imported from developing countries such as China and its prices are quite low, although its quality is not the same as the domestic kind. As a result, garlic has been imported earlier than broccoli and supplied to meet the different needs from those of domestic products. Domestic garlic could survive due to improving its quality, and maintaining higher prices than those imported, i.e., segregation of markets. Broccoli has been contrarily imported later, but imports made great inroads into domestic markets because of small price gaps between domestic and imported due to favorable exchange rates of the Japanese yen.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship of cyclical fluctuation between cocoon prices and cocoon production from 1982 to 1994. Both the former and the latter were treated by statistical analysis. At first, the use of coefficient of correlation was used. Next in use of ALMON'S LAG was used to calculate the result. As result, the influence of cocoon production against cocoon price appeared one year after most strongly and next, two years after. Namely, in comparing from 1955 to 1981 and from 1982 to 1994, it appears that the correspondense of price in the latter is stronger than in the former. Finally, it is induced that sericultural farm households have given consideration to four facters for cocoon production, namely : 1) fluctuation of cocoon prices, 2) more opportunity of getting cash income from non agricultural works, 3) sericultural income in comparison with other field products and 4) improvement of productivity in cocoon production.

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"Ceylon Tea", one of the historic beverages, has played a prominent role in the economy in Sri Lanka. Despite this key economic role, the current performance of the tea industry shows a significant stagnant growth. This downward trend is directly linked to the high cost of production, low yield and labor unrest prevailing in the tea plantations. This situation has further worsened by over-supply from the new entries into the international tea trade, especially countries from East Africa. The purpose of this study is to clarify the characteristics of plantation land reform (1972-75) and privatization of the plantation management companies (1992) in Sri Lanka. In order to fulfill the above objectives data was collected by a field survey on Maturata plantation which represents the typical tea plantation in Sri Lanka. A plantation is generally defined as ex-large extended land with mono-crops mainly based on large number of rural workers, semi-processed product which caused to a dual economic structure in the plantation countries. The development of plantation agriculture in Sri Lanka was divided into four periods; 1) Under British Colonial system 2) Post-Independence period 3) Post-Land Reform and 4) Post privatization. Under the British, the management of tea plantation was done on the foreign based system but it was changed after the Land Reform Laws in the early 70s. These laws led to nationalizing tea lands which exceeded the margin of 10 ha. The Land Reform Amendment Law in 1975 vested 16,927 ha. of foreign owned tea plantations. These law were directly divised to generate employment for rural people and to increase the productivity of plantations. None of the results were as successful as expected in the tea plantations as chronic problems developed such as low productivity and high costs of production. Due to the unprofitableness of the state management, the tea plantation came into private hands once again in 1992. It made provisions that 443 tea estates become 22 regional plantations companies while ownership remained under the state control. Out of the 22 RPCs, 7 companies are still operated under the supervision of the foreign technical collaborators, while 15 RPCs are managed by Sri Lankan companies. By analyzing the Maturata Plantation, the participation of foreign share holders in plantation management was observed. Benefiting from private management, the RPCs show a significant growth in production, processing and marketing which has enabled the tea industry to face a more competitive environment. However, small tea holders which entered the tea industry after the land reform in 1972 remain in a higher position than large plantations. The future development of the tea industry mainly lays on the proper methods on increasing yield, processing branded teas and the developing small holders sectors.

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