This paper attempts to make clear the regional characteristics of the agricultural cooperatives (Nokyo) in Hiroshima prefecture. The results obtained are summarized as follows : As a result of the principal component analysis on the characteristics of the agricultural cooperative in 1992,eight components (cumulative percentage of the total variance ; 82.3%) were extracted. The major components could be termed as the activity of agricultural production (eigenvalue ; 9.70,percentage of the total variance explained ; 28.5%), the level of rurality (6.59,l9.4%), non-financial operations (3.36,9.9%) and-so on. By the first four components, all of the agricultural cooperatives in Hiroshima prefecture were classified into 4 types by the cluster analysis (Ward's method); A, B, C and D type. The distribution patterns of the four types are clearly separated one another as clusters ; A type cooperatives (16 cooperatives) are in the mountainous regions, B type ones (6) are in islands regions, C type (5) are in suburban regions and D type (27) are in urban regions. An agricultural cooperative has various problems under the regional conditions. Shobara Agricultural Cooperative (type A) has a problem of the shortage of hands in agriculture because of social aging. Setodacho Agricultural Cooperative (type B) is a good example of the high level of the nonfinancial operations especially in orange producing. In Higashi-Hiroshima-Shiwa Agricultural Cooperative (type C) the linkage between cooperative and its members has become faint because of the high level of the farm family involved in another business. Saekichuo Agricultural Cooperative (type D) is dependent on financial operations. And operation of the real estate is a peculiar to the type D.

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