The purpose of this study is to clarify through survival analysis which factors particular to a certain area and the market structure affect the sustainability of designated vegetable producing areas. The main points discussed in this paper include:
1. Early designated areas are apt to show higher rate of cancellation. The average length as the designated areas that have been cancelled is 13.6 years. This confirms broadly accepted understanding, but has not yet been fully verified so far.
2. The increase in designated areas in northern Japan in recent years is considered to be a result of a lowering in the entry barriers due to the decreasing number of competitors in other parts of the country.
3. The survival analysis showed a decrease in sustainability for areas used for out door production of heavy vegetables, such as radish and cabbage.
4. In a cancelled area of the mountainous Chugoku region we found a growing shift from the out door production of heavy vegetables to the production of lighter and house type vegetables.
5. The gradual increase in cancelled areas which have shifted their type of production, suggests the need to review the present system for designating vegetable production areas.

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Many papers have measured the Option Price (OP) assuming that it is a non-negative one. Consumers, however, have their positive and negative positions to conserve rural areas. This paper investigated a new method to evaluate not only positive but also negative OP at the same time. That is a dichotomous choice Contingent method using thee expenditure function in the exponential linear model.
Using this method, the OP was measured average 49, 355 yen per year to the parents whose children stayed in the mountainous region, and 23, 900 yen to the parents whose children attended the summer camps. The negative OP was not found but the function in the former group permits negative value in the case of bad experiences of the stay. This highlights the importance of caring for children when administrations plan to develop their mountainous regions using the function of the environmental education in such regions.

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