The area of farmland in Japan decreased and farmland use declined greatly in the 1990s. This has caused a scale-down in the space devoted to agricultural production and rural living and has affected the rural dwelling environment seriously. Thus a study of these problems in the case of EhimePrefecture (EP) was made and carried out as follows:
Firstly, it was found that the decrease in total farmland in Ehime was low, but the decrease in fruit-planted land was high from 1960 to 1995.
Secondly, the background of the problems and actual situations were considered. According to the results, the background of the problems is that there has been a change in the labor structure of farmers, a rice surplus, a decline in citrus fruit consumption, and a slump in vegetable production caused by a rapid increase in the import of foreign vegetables. In addition, the distribution of the decrease in the area of farmland is unequal in the cities, towns and rural villages (CTRs) .
Thirdly, the CTRs were classified in 9 areas by their locations and distinctions in the distribution of farmland, and these areas were classified in 4 groups using the Cluster Analysis Method. Furthermore, the distinctive characteristics of the groups were analyzed. According to the results, the most important cause of the decrease in the area of farmland is the decrease in farm labor in all of the groups, especially in the fourth group. On the other hand, the location and cultivated conditions are also one of the important causes in the first group, and farmland diversion is one cause in the second and third groups, and the decline of fishery is another cause in the fourth group.
Thus, the conclusions for farmland preservation are given as follows:
1) ensure successors to farmers in the first group, and establish Agriculture Public Corporation for farmland preservation of the first group.
2) increase possession of farmland by farmers who are eager to work in agriculture, and prevent farmland diversion to non-agriculture sectors in the second group.
3) prevent farmland diversion to non-agriculture sectors and farmland to be unused through improving the farmers' vitality in the third group.
4) establish a system of directed farmers' income compensation and Agricultural Public Corporations for farmland preservation in the fourth group.

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Nowadays with the spread in the use of vehicles and the change in life style, retail market areas are becoming bigger and bigger. Under this phenomena, it is necessary to adjust the rural plans to this prevalence condition. This study is an empirical analysis of retail spatial structure based on grocery shopping behavior in the Tohaku region, Tottori Prefecture. The study area is agriculture dominated area, characterized by a strong primacy city phenomena. Grocery shopping behavior was selected because it has many numbers of trips done in daily life. The analysis is based on the travel flow data from home to retail shop, collected by questionnaires in the study area. In the preliminary analysis, it is clear that most of the respondents use family owned car and patron a large scale retail store. However, we can not disregard the number of people patronizing a small scale retail store on foot or by bicycle.
From the travel flow data and the centrality index, the location of central place and its spatial pattern of area of influence are clarified. The area of influence has hierarchical and overlapping structure characteristics, however the upper barrier for travelling distance is 15 km. It means if there existed two central places, it could cover the whole region. These central places are referred to Kurayoshi in the eastern side, Yabase and Akasaki in the western side of the study area. The other central places can be ranked as a lower class of central places. Moreover, we found that there is a clear difference between central places patronized by consumers with family owned car, and by consumers on foot or by bicycle.
Based on the spatial potential theory, we analyzed the dynamics of central places transformation. As a consequence, retail stores tend to locate in the area with higher location potential. In the process of the. analysis, we also found that the degree of purchasing convenience in the northern part (plain area) is quite different from that in the southern part (mountainuos area) . For this issue, we concluded that further development of central places with high location potential in the southern part could give the best solution.

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