While conducting fieldwork in the village of Toyohara in Yamagata Prefecture, we discovered a diary written by a farmer named Zenji over a period of 42 years, beginning when he was 16 in 1893 and ending when he was 58 in 1935. As a record of 42 repetitions in the seasonal cycle that forms the basis of agricultural life, it suggests that the underlying principle of that mode of existence, as handed down from generation to generation, is “sacrifice today, store for tomorrow.” That is, fulfilling the needs and desires of others not yet born through one’s own endeavour. This is the bulwark of agrarian society’s ongoing stability and resilience.

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　　　Aiming at advancing grassroots democracy in rural society, the Villagers’ Representative Assembly was newly established at each village by the Chinese government after decollectivization. Although this new political institution was expected to promote villagers’ political participation, its substantial influences over the self-governance processes in local community have not been sufficiently examined.
　　　Based on field researches at a village in Hebei providence in 1994, 1996, and 1997, this paper first describes the organization process of the Villagers’ Representative Assembly in the village, and then examines the impact of the VRA over decision making processes.
　　　I conclude that the VRA does not seem to have changed the past ways of decision making in the village. Both cadres and other villagers are rather likely to make use of it selectively in accordance with their own interests; villagers rely upon this new system only when cadres violate their norms that are embedded in the nature of local community.

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　　　In U.S. agriculture, structural changes, such as concentration, vertical coordination and globalization are more and more prominent today. Those phenomena have been called as “industrialization of agriculture.” In this paper, the author reviews recent trends of industrialization and refers to the related factors which have played a major role to the advent of agricultural industrialization. The author emphasizes technological factor among various factors. In particular, the change of biotechnological R＆D strategy, which tends to focus on output trait rather than input trait, is argued as one of the most important drives to accelerate the industrialization. While economic analysis on the industrialization of agriculture is prospering, sociological implications of the phenomena are also unneglectable. Based on the review of recent analysis done by agricultural sociologists, the author proposes several sociological viewpoints to elucidate the implication of the industrialization in terms of producers’ decision-making, flow of technical information, and food system restructuring. Implications for Japanese agriculture is also discussed in the final part of the paper.

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　　　The Sangyokumiai was the direct predecessor of the present agricultural cooperative society. It spreaded throughout the farming community in the 1930’s. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the role of Sangyokumiai workers in those days.
　　　At the time, the Sangyokumiai played an important role as an agency of delivery and distribution, and therefore it held an important position both economically and socially. Previous studies of the Sangyokumiai have tended to focus on its management and leaders, and so this paper aims to examine its workers and to clarify their tasks and roles within the organization.
　　　In order to examine Sangyokumiai workers, I use an actual private diary which was kept by an individual Sangyokumiai worker before World War Ⅱ. According to his description, his tasks as a Sangyokumiai worker were mainly the encouragement and soliciting of savings, the delivery of rice and barley, and the distribution of manure and sundries. In addition, he attended the regular meetings of the regional groups “Jokai”, where he very often lectured on the local economy. Finally, the paper points out that this individual Sangyokumiai workers was not exceptional but was typical of other workers within the organization.

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　　　Green tourism in France has developed. Green tourism is considered as significant mean for realizing of urban dweller’s leisure needs, for supplement of farming income as side business, and also for revitalizing of rural areas.
　　　In this paper, the course of French green tourism is reviewed. The author would like to focus on the supporting organizations in order to promote and enhance green tourism activities, and also would like to examine matters of hints for development of Japanese green tourism.

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