As large food retailers have developed due to the high economic growth in Japan since 1955, the Japanese food marketing system has been transformed from a manufacturer-led or wholesaler-led to a retailer-led one. However as a result of the deflation of the economy and the maturity of food consumption which have manifested themselves in Japan since the 1990's, the food marketing system or supply chain has started to pursue high efficiency and high-quality provision, including a high safety level. When the incidents concerning food safety and disguise happened recently, every food supplier was forced to consult and reorganize their systems to guarantee food safety to consumers. The Japanese government is now trying to introduce new regulations on food safety, which will force all food suppliers to adhere to minimum safety standards. The introduction of new regulations should be highly valued even if there are some problems and limitations.
The limitations of the food regulations in the food safety act are as follows; firstly, the role ofthe government is restricted to the setting of minimum standards of food safety and the support for its basis. Secondly, there exists the problem of who should be charged with the increased cost of guaranteeing food safety. Thirdly, the reliability of records and indications is never assured.
In regard to these issues, there still exists the importance of the competition regulations and the structural programs of the government. For example, most wholesale markets in Japan have no equipment or system to reach the level of hygiene standards. As some local supermarkets evacuated from local retail markets by closing their stores after the collapse of the bubble economy, there could be observed areas with no food retail shops, resulting in consumer inconvenience. Therefore public support is required to maintain the wholesale market system and local retail organization. The wholesome development of Japanese food marketing systems is expected through the diversity of marketing systems, competition among them, and partnership or trust within each chain.

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The current structure of Japan's food processing industries is the direct result of rapid globalization in market, firm management, and import policy. In the 1980s, the larger food organizations increased their emphasis on diversification and direct foreign investment strategies. Some food firms became multi-national in scope, establishing subsidiaries globally. Moreover the relative share of raw material import is particularly high for Japan's food processing: More than 30% of the raw materials of the food industry, including the food service industry.
The food processing industry is highly concentrated; the seasoning, instant noodle, wheat flour, vinegar, and meat processing industries are strongly indicative of the high degree of oligopolization. The network of trading companies, food processors, wholesalers, retail chains, and food services have been largely responsible for the success of the foodbusiness.
After 1985, the larger food processing firms increased emphasis on direct investment and overseas raw material procurement strategies. In China, as in several other parts of Asia, Japanese food firms are promoting the development of food processing and raw materials for export to Japan.
On the other hand, medium- and small-sized food processors have made efforts to encourage domestic raw materials. As virtually 50 to 80% of raw materials are domestic, the processing plants are located in inland locations and they make a contract agreement with raw material producers. The continuing challenge to medium- and small-sized food processing industries will be procurement of raw materials from domestic sources in planning their own particular strategies for market segmentation.

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The marketing system for fresh produce has changed drastically in these recent decades. The following phenomena are embodied in this change. Inelastic selling activities of cooperatives, mere shells of auctions in wholesale markets, augmentation of direct transactions between cooperatives and supermarkets in wholesale markets, incremental growth of direct transactions outside of wholesale markets, and direct marketing of produce by farmers. These phenomena are caused by a change in the vertical relationship between agriculture and the food industry. Conventional methodology which focuses on horizontal relations, that is, relations between buyers or between sellers, however, can not clarify these vertical relationship problems. The viewpoints from vertical relations, that is to say, relations between sellers and buyers are adopted for the analysis in this paper. Inefficiencies of the first two phenomena arise in the presence of a legalistically constrained relationship between member farmers and cooperative or between cooperatives and wholesalers, so deregulation of cooperative law and wholesale market law should be applied to reduce the inefficiencies. It is proposed that direct purchase of produce by cooperatives or wholesalers instead of consignment should be permitted. Expansion of direct transactions between cooperatives and supermarkets or processors should be accelerated, too.
However, simple deregulation does more harm than good. If transactions are not regulated at all, the food industry will obtain the right of control over agriculture, because of its intrinsic capital power. Once right of control is unilaterally created by the food industry, incentive for investment in human assets in agriculture is diminished. This investment in human assets is mostly required for the newly growing demand for fresh produce as ‘concept commodities'. This reduction of incentive is caused by the fact that the fruits of agricultural investment are shared by the food industry without any compensation for investment cost. Reduction of incentive represents inefficiency. In preceding papers, transactions controlled by the food industry have been criticized from the viewpoint of equity, which depends on value judgment. But in this paper, control by the food industry is criticized as inefficiency which is independent of value judgment. Inefficiency should be reduced. Thus both the food industry and agriculture are needed to control each other bilaterally. Agriculture can obtain incentives for investment by doing so. In addition to deregulation, agricultural protection, which allows agriculture to obtain control over the food industry should be included in our policies in order to induce incentives for agricultural investment, that is, to promote efficiency.

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The author classifies the policy measures concerning the food industry into the following three categories. The first category is the industrial policies which consist of formation of infrastructure, and improvement of industry structure and organization. The second is the competition policies which include consumer protection, and the third is social regulations covering safety and nutritional aspects of food.
With these classifications the author scrutinizes food-industry-related policy measures provided by MAFF in the past four decades. Four stages of policy development, which approximately correspond to the four decades respectively, are identified and then characterized as those of emergence, establishment, systemization, and disturbance and rest-ructuring.　In order to create a better-harmonized body of food industry policies and agriculturalpolicies, it is argued, we must clearly recognize the merits and defects of existing policies. In particular the author stresses the importance of policy assessment from the viewpoint of cross-effect. The policy measures oriented to agriculture sometimes contain a significant cross-effect on the food industry. Some are beneficial but others are not. Food industry policy measures might also have cross-effects on agriculture.
Policy measures for food safety, which are classified as social regulation, can be said to be an independent third-party policy for both the food industry and agriculture. To achieve the goal of food safety, the food industry and agriculture must contribute in a complementary manner. In this sense food safety issues might play a leading role in harmonizing food industry policy and agricultural policy.

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