At the turn of century, countries worldwide are facing the immense challenge of economic globalization in terms of the flow of capital and commodities. This trend is justified by the concept known as "market fundamentalism." This doctrine, basically embodied in neo-classical economics, maintains the utopian view that every type of social relation in the world can be transformed into the sole system of capitalistic mode or cash-nexus. In other words, this view insists that the different traditional societies can evolve into a rational and contractual society that uses scarce resource allocation efficiently. In this essay, the author has tried to criticize this market-fundamentalism by focusing on the limits of the market mechanism in terms of allocating land and labor, especially in rural economies. The author believes that recognizing this limit explicitly is the starting point of developing agricultural economics in the 21st century.

The subject of this paper is to raise awareness of the direction of the agri-food systems through analysis of the EU quality policy, which has implemented a change from intervention policy, and convention theory theoretically based on the quality policy in France. (1) The EU quality policy proposes to link together protection and developing consumer and producer post-intervention policies, assuring food security and quality, and supplying food quality information to the consumer. Not only are the regulation of hygiene, security and health part of the compulsory policy, the support and sales promotion of high or varied qualities as a voluntary policy could be effective and would be an important focus. (2) Serious consideration should be given to the following: The market can work with institutions, and a diversity of such coordination would be rather effective. Most recently, a convention of rules and institutions of a market has been introduced by conventions of product quality. Convention is established according to the worlds of order of justifying oneself, as is illustrated in Boltanski L. and Thevnot L. (1991). (3) Providing quality is based on a convention founded as the result of the social confrontation process between different logic, not in the market. Conventions can change market conditions. For instance, an argument for regional diversity can establish the preservation of a particular taste with traditional craft and natural environment: protecting the name of the place of origin, as another standard is not competitive as a rule of cost and efficiency. (4) Quality institutions (e.g., brand, the name of the place of origin and certification) also come into play as a result of the social confrontation process. In such institutions, the objective is to secure the order of reliance, where reducing the uncertainty of quality and assisting consumers in the identification of products is required. Through this public coordination is introduced into household, industrial and market coordination. (5) Importance should be attached to the vertical linkage of food system actors to form an order of reliance. Typical vertical linkage can be found in beef quality-guarantee programs.

The purpose of this study is as follows: First, the arrangement of endogenous development theory, and second, indications of restructuring regional agriculture. From the viewpoint of the theory of international relations, the starting point was the proposal for "alternative development" in 1975. From the sociological viewpoint, criticism against the theory of modernization evolved from endogenous development theory. When considering economics and public finance, endogenous development theory is based on regional disparity and human development. Some regional economists have arranged principle of endogenous development, and from the viewpoint of rural economics, the endogenous development theory is effective. The effective points for rural development are as follows. 1. It must be given that regional technology, industry, culture and intellectual property are important. 2. Regional learning by inhabitants is important. 3. Regional industrial relations are important. 4. Regional environments and ecosystems must be preserved. 5. Autonomy by inhabitants is important. And inhabitants must implement original, synthetic, regional policies by themselves. These points must be taken into consideration when planning rural development programs. A rural development program must be composed of various mutual and relational industries. Agriculture, forestry, manufacturing, commerce, tourism; all are constituent elements of a rural development program. In such a program, a balance between self-effort and public subsidy is very important. If endogenous development theory is applied to the development of rural economy, it becomes possible to select the future of regional agriculture.

This article reviews the history and presence of Japanese agriculture in terms of farming systems and discusses the formation of fundamental subjects for the new century. It is constructed of three sections: History, Status Quo and View for the 21st Century. In History, I treat as a problem why technological providence in agriculture was refuted while agronomy progressed quickly in modern Japan. More concretely, I discuss agronomy theory and circulation of the material model generated by J.V. Liebig, the pioneer of modern agronomics. As a result, modern agronomy has worked to recover from the breakdown of materials circulation in modern agriculture through external supply. In Status Quo, I pick up a strategy on agricultural technology of the agribusiness. In mid-1980s, the progress of GMO technology generated a new situation that enabled agribusiness to dominate world agriculture in support of the strengthening of intellectual ownership systems and approving a patent system for organisms. I consider this as the center of globalization in the area of agricultural technology, and it continues to collide with agro-system locality and species variety in the long-term. In View for the 21st Century, I consider the subject of establishing cyclical agriculture, a new farming system related to the establishment of the cyclical society. Specifically, I point out that we must integrate agriculture into society anew for the purpose of evolving with the social structure as it changes to a cyclical society in the 21st century. For this purpose, it is necessary that we create a rural civil society; that is, create a valid vision for constructing local life-networks based on local symbiosis and material economics.