After World War II, Japan increased its institutional efforts to improve the technology of rice production. As a result Japan experienced a remarkable increase in the domestic yield of rice. Since the middle of the 1960s the overproduction of domestic rice has raised nationwide concern. To prevent the decrease in the domestic price of rice due to overproduction, Japan implemented the Policy of Reducing Production (Seisan Chosei). Under this policy, the acreage of rice planted paddy fields has been strictly restricted respectively at each level of farmhouses, agricultural settlements, and municipalities. With this policy a farmer can receive a subsidy for planting crops other than rice on a paddy field. The subsidy received is based on the type of substitute crop. The Government has guaranteed pastures to receive the highest subsidy.
In this article the process of regional adaptability to the Policy of Reducing Production is discussed with regards to the impact of a farmer's organization and the condition of the agricultural land. To accomplish this, the municipality of Towa-cho, where rice production is predominate, was selected as the study area. To examine the impact of a farmer's organization and the condition of the land, two agricultural settlements within Towa-cho were selected: Momonosawa and Motomachi.
Before the 1970s a large-scale reclamation had been carried out at Momonosawa. A farmer's cooperative for mutual use of agricultural machinery had not been organized at this settlement. The farmers had individually adopted agricultural machinery such as a cultivator, a tractor, a rice planting machine and a combined harvester. The use of this type of machinery would alleviate the time spent on farming and allow the farmers to manage more time so they can pursue other potential sources of income outside of farming. As an adaptation to the policy, crop conversion from rice to pasture has been the general tendency of the farmers since the 1970s. However, after the 1990s there has been a regional overproduction of pasture at Momonosawa. This in turned has forced farmers to change from pasture to a lower subsidy crop. As a result the “adjusted paddy field” (Chosei-suiden, a paddy field where no crops are planted) has been increasing at Momonosawa. It should be noted that there is a cultural propensity for Japanese farmers to resist abandoning a paddy field.
The conversion from paddy field to pasture is also a common practice at Motomachi. In contrast to Momonosawa, a well-developed farmer's cooperative has been established at Motomachi since the 1970s. Within Motomachi there are varying functioning levels of farmer's cooperatives. To examine the possible impact of the of a farmer's cooperative in more detail, three hamlets within Motomachi have been selected: Yakata, Nakada and Oki. In Yakata, the farmer's cooperative is very weak. Due to this weakness the lower class farmers have tended to abandon agricultural activities except for the cultivation of a paddy field for self-sufficiency. As a result fallow and abandoned fields have increased since the 1990s. In Nakada, the farmer's cooperative had been well developed but has weakened over time. The decrease in the farmer's cooperative membership played a key role in it's weakening. Despite the weak farmer's cooperative, it helped hinder the development of fallow or abandoned fields there. In Oki, a strong farmer's cooperative has been developed. They have demonstrated a collective behavior toward adapting to the policy. As opposed to converting paddy fields to pastures, a large-scale collective production of high-returned crops, such as cucumber and alley, has been implemented. This is an example of the possibility of maintaining regional agriculture despite of severe circumstances brought about by policies such as the Policy of Reducing Production.

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This research attempted to determine the interregional relationship from the perspective of the locations and mining area ownership trends of oil companies in Niigata prefecture focusing on the year 1892 during the rise of private corporations, the results of which are as described below.
Although there were 484 oil companies located in Niigata prefecture in 1892, 396 of those companies, corresponding to 94% of all oil companies in the prefecture, had their headquarters located in Koshi county. However, many of these oil companies only had capital on the level of 10, 000 yen and operated on a small scale. In addition, with respect to the geographical distribution of mining areas in that same year as well, mining areas have been confirmed to be highly concentrated in Koshi county in the same manner as the headquarters mentioned above.
The headquarters and mining areas of these oil companies were equivalent to the management sectors and production sectors, respectively. Interregional division of labor was formed within these companies in the case these two sectors were physically separated. Among oil companies located in Niigata prefecture, the Nagaoka district of Koshi county was a prominent site for the central location of the management sector. As a result, each company established its management facilities there, while retaining production sectors in the form of mining areas in Koshi county and other agricultural and mountain villages. This development of interregional division of labor within these private corporations served to activate the development of oil fields, while simultaneously weakening the authority of towns and villages located in mining areas to determine the course of local development.

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The wind velocity and air temperature were measured during January and March in 1992 at a windbreak forest around the farmhouse in the Sendai Plain, north Japan. Average wind velocity was 2.1m/s at the outside point and was 1.3m/s at the center of garden inside of the windbreak forest. Wind velocity difference between outside and inside of the forest was larger at night than in daytime. On the other hand, air temperature inside of windbreak forest is higher than the outside in daytime and lower than the outside at night. Difference of air temperature between inside and outside of the forest was larger in the days with strong wind than the days with weak wind.
In the daytime, the regional difference of air temperature increases inside of the forest. This large temperature difference brings unstable condition and the microscale circulation. Therefore, the fluctuations of wind velocity and air temperature increase at inside of the forest during daytime.

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