The purpose of this paper is to clarify the actual condition and the challenges for standardisation of human resource development in the farming industry in developed countries, by investigating the viability of farming career paths for new entrants in Britain. The approach employed in this analysis was a series of case studies in Southwest England. The county farm estates, the crown estates, the duchy of Cornwall, the national trust and several farmers were examined.
In Britain, it is often the case with the new entrants to get started farming by becoming tenants of the county farms. However, Farm Business Tenancies, which was installed in 1995, could make it difficult for these tenants to develop farming career paths, by the restriction of tenancy periods, the moving requirement and the withdrawal requirement.
To develop farming career paths after leaving the county farms, these farmers must purchase or rent another farm. When the viability of purchasing farms is examined, several data indicate that it gets more and more difficult to purchase a farm with return from farming itself. On the other hand, when the viability of farm rent is examined, the role of traditional land owning institutions is remarked. The survey results reveal that these institutions prefer a long-term relationship with "excellent" tenants. Therefore it is possible for the tenants in county farms to rent farms from these institutions, if they can develop their managerial capabilities within the restricted rent periods.
We can say that the faming career paths in Britain begin from the county farms followed by tenanted farms which are let by the other traditional institutions. However, two points should be kept in mind: (1) these paths are available for limited "excellent" farmers, (2) to make these career paths perform, coordination among land owning institutions is vital.

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Not only men, but also women, are supporting fishery in Japan at the present time. A lot of women in fishery work on land, processing and selling of fish. Their labor is important in fishery; however, the evaluation of women's labor is especially low.
Kase (1988) characterizes women's labor in fishery as "non-skilled and easy labor". More recent study, Miki (2000), has analyzed that women have skill and control management of fish in work on land. However women's working hours on land are equal to or more than men's working hours on sea. In addition, women are burdened with housework. Therefore, there are still many problems about labor in fishery.
On the other hand, since women's positions are low in the fisheries village society, women's groups can support improving their positions.
First of all, this paper analyzes the state of wom-en's labor and brings out women's role in Hikoshima. Second, we examine the characteristics of the work on land. Third, our goal is to investigate whether women's groups have the potential to contribute to the solution of their problems.
The following results were obtained: Women in Hikoshima have skill and knowledge in working on land. Therefore their labor is not "non-skilled and easy labor". In addition, since women support their family finances, their consciousness about fishery is high. Thereby they earned the right of becoming member of the fisheries cooperative association. The role of the women's group can be summarized in four points: First, the women's group contributed to improve their abilities. Second, their group helped women speak to fisheries cooperative association and village. Third, the group helped their role be recognized in the society. Fourth, the group is able to grasp the problems about social economics and social fishery.

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In recent years, direct selling of rice by farmers through the Internet has been increasing. Furthermore, Internet sale by wholesalers and retailers has also been observed. This paper aims to clarify competitive advantage between rice distributors and rice producers (farmers), and to find out decisive factors that contribute to sales of rice using the Internet. For the method for research, questionnaires were sent by email. The data obtained from the research was used to compare sales of farmers and distributors. In addition, decesive factors for competitive advantage as elements of marketing policy were analyzed. The analysis focused on differentiation of every site in terms of information contents and appeal points on the web.
From the analysis, it was found that sales of producers were higher than those of distributors in Internet sale of rice. Repeat purchase was also found to be higher with producers compared to distributors. It further became clear that the information about cultivation method and the appeal of speed of delivery are very important factors. One important revelation from the research was that there was no correlation between selling price and sales. It is reasonable to suppose that the gap in sales has occurred with non-price competition on Internet sale of rice. It was found that producers have competitive advantage in product and image differentiation in Internet sale of rice.
Generally accepted theory is that the combination of a real store with a virtual store on the Internet is stronger. However, in Internet sale of rice, the producers as direct sellers without a real store are found to have a competitive advantage over the distributors with real stores.

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In this paper, we showed that the mean WTP in the referendum contingent valuation (CV) is consistently estimated through estimating a binary response model by OLS. Parametric estimation methods, which are conventionally used to estimate the mean WTP in CV, crucially depend on the specification about the true probability distribution. But it is not so easy to correctly specify the true probability distribution, and if we misspecify, we cannot consistently estimate the mean WTP. The method we showed here is easy to estimate and robust for the probability distribution. A Monte Carlo experiment showed that mean WTP is estimated well even in a small sample.

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Agricultural/forestry damages caused by Hokkaido sika deer have been drastically increasing recently. So as to take appropriate responses to this issue, the Hokkaido government formulated a plan called ‘Conservation and Management Plan for Sika Deer' in 2000. Its main purpose is to reduce agricultural/forestry damages, but the ecological and economical validity of the target resource level has not been fully examined. This paper, therefore, addresses the optimal management of Hokkaido sika deer from a bioeconomic view point.
We examine three cases; in the first case, we regard a forest owner as a decision-maker, and the price of deer meat (venison) is exogenously given to the decision-maker. In the other cases, we regard a public authority as a decision-maker and assume that the price is a function of harvest. We compare the situation where the public authority behaves socially optimally with the situation where it acts as a monopolist.
Based on numerical simulations, the following results are obtained. Firstly, when the revenue from forestry products is sufficiently high, wildlife should be controlled below the population level corresponding to maximum sustainable yield. Secondly, there exists a unique population level where a certain sustainable resource level can be achieved regardless of the price level. If the decision-maker manages at other population levels, substantial change of the management might be required as changes in the price and/or the discount rate occur. Thirdly, in our cases of Hokkaido sika deer, the difference in sustainable resource levels between the social optimum case and the monopoly case is not very large.

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