In March 2020, the National Assembly revised the Framework Act on Cooperatives, allowing a federation of heterogeneous cooperatives, and in October 2020, the Daegu Gyeongbuk Federation of Local Food Cooperatives was launched as the first federation of heterogeneous cooperatives in the country. The local food movement, which has been promoted upward in the local community as an alternative to the existing global food system, seems to be being activated by the government's food plan policy, but critics say that the government's policy goals are not fully achieved due to the top-down policy promotion and lack of communication. In response, this study first examines the role and significance of the local food federation of heterogeneous cooperatives in solving the problems raised in the process of establishing a food plan. In addition, the current status of the federation was investigated for the successful settlement and development of the Daegu Gyeongbuk Federation of Local Food Cooperatives. A survey of affiliated cooperatives, focus group interviews with managers and experts and related literature surveys were conducted. Based on this, the direction of activities was presented, such as the role of an intermediary in Daegu and Gyeongbuk and the role of an intermediary in the public and private sectors etc. In addition, six joint project tasks were specifically presented, including an integrated information sharing system & a logistics network, a planned production system & a joint processing center, an online sales system & a co-marketing promotion, a joint education system, a management of direct stores & restaurants, a sustainable public-private cooperation system etc.

The demand for commercial kimchi has increased continuously for the past 20 years due to the increase in eating out demand. Although Korean kimchi industry has expanded significantly, it is still small and a large portion of domestic demand is dependent on Chinese kimchi. Chinese kimchi imports has markedly increased over the last 20 years. However, kimchi imports from China in 2021 significantly reduced due to the recently released video showing a naked man making Kimchi. Korean government has decided to apply HACCP to all imported Kimchi from October 2021 in order to improve the safety of imported kimchi. This study analyzed the effect of changes in the amount of kimchi imports due to the introduction of HACCP on the kimchi industry by using a dynamic partial equilibrium model. According to the analysis result, if imports decreased by 20% compared to the Baseline, domestic kimchi production increased from 1.8% to a maximum of 4.8%, but kimchi consumption decreased from 3.1% to 5.2%. In particular, consumption away from home decreased from 3.3% to 5.7%. It is expected that the results of this study would be used as useful data in the decision-making process of market participants and policy makers related to the kimchi industry.

This study analyzed the effect of purchase competence on purchasing performance when purchasing eco-friendly food ingredients from school nutrition teachers. To this end, 131 copies surveyed for school nutrition teachers in the survey area were used for analysis. As a result of the analysis, the verification of the difference between purchase competence and purchase performance according to the general characteristics of school nutrition teachers showed significant differences according to age. In addition, the general characteristics of nutrition teachers and the effect of purchase competence on purchasing performance had a positive (+) effect on purchasing performance by Attitude, Knowledge, and communication among purchase competence. In this respect, it is judged that it is necessary to form an organic relationship between the supplier of eco-friendly food ingredients and nutrition teachers in school meals.

Rice has prevailed as a staple food in South Korea. Rice consumption has sharply shrunk nowadays. In the wake of COVID-19 Shock and the "untact" era, the instant rice market has significantly grown, and there is a possibility of solving the shrinking consumption of domestic rice. This study contributes to the development of rice consumption promotion strategies by examining the factors of purchasing instant rice based on the Hedonic Price Methodology. In particular, given the increase in online market, this study compares attribute values of product characteristics between online and offline markets. The empirical results show that calorie, brand, organic and functional products have positive effects on instant rice prices. The rate of carbohydrate, the PB and bundle attributes have negative effects on instant rice prices. The results also show that the magnitude of brand, bundle and PB attribute values are bigger in offline market while that of the number of multigrain attribute value is relatively bigger in online market. The organic attribute value is important regardless of marketing channels.

A survey on the understanding of environment-friendly certification system was conducted for certified operators. The survey included the necessity of certification system, difficulties in producing certified products, and general evaluation of the current certification system. Certified operators were generally satisfied with the certification system in terms of the certification standards, the public subsidy programs, and the farm management costs. Individuals with parallel production farms were relatively less satisfied than the group with full-time organic farmers. Analysis using the ranking probit model indicated that the longer the certification experience, the more highly aware the need for the certification system was. Our results indicated that policy strategies are needed to enlarge the marketability of environment-friendly agricultural products since economic factors of organic products were the most important factor for maintaining and expanding certification in overseas as well as in Korea. It seems to be necessary to implement economic triggers for certified operators to continue their certification programs by promoting the transition period certification for individual farms in parallel with conventional agriculture. Analysis of the variables correlated with the expansion of environment-friendly agriculture by the logit model implied that certified operators with the younger age and higher annual incomes were more likely to expand environment-friendly agriculture. Therefore, it might also be important to provide financial support and incentives for new entry farmers to participate in environment-friendly agriculture and establish a system to share the know-how of successful certified organic farmers.

The purpose of this study is to provide meaningful information for various stakeholders' decision-making process through forecasting of domestic beef demand. Three different exponential smoothing models were evaluated, and a double exponential smoothing model was used to forecast domestic beef demand based on time-series data, As a result of the forecast, domestic beef consumption is expected to increase by 37,000 to 40,000 tons per year from 2020 to 2025.

The negative impact of climate change on the agricultural sector is rapidly increasing, and it is urgent to prepare policies at the government level to mitigate it. In the case of Rwanda's agricultural sector, which lacks the government's budget and farmers' capital, efficient and effective policy implementation is of paramount importance. To this end, rather than establishing related policies in the public sector from the top down, it is necessary to establish a bottom-up customized policy that is reflected in policy establishment by identifying the characteristics and behaviors of farmers who actually participate in adaptation activities. In this study, the effects of farmers' characteristics and farmers' perception status/adaptation status to climate change on the selection of adaptation methods for climate change were analyzed. 357 rice farmers randomly selected from Eastern Rwanda were surveyed to explore the information related to farmers' perception to climate change and adaptation methods as well as basic information of the farm. Research shows that the probability of selecting a variety of adaptation methods rather than not responding to climate change increases the younger the age, the higher the education level, and the easier access to climate information and credit. As a policy proposals, it is judged that public support such as strengthening agricultural technology support services, including more detailed guidance for elderly and low-educated farmers, and improving access to farm loan services by agricultural financial institutions is needed. In addition, it is necessary to adjust the planting time and cultivation method, provide timely information related to climate change, and provide crop variety improvement services to farmers.

This study investigated consumers' perception of fruits and vegetables grown in smart farms to stimulate the sale of agricultural products grown in smart farms. To this end, a survey was conducted on 1,050 consumers. The main results are as follows. First, 58.6% of respondents knew about smart farms, and they perceived fruits and vegetables grown in smart farms as more valuable than those grown in conventional facilities. In the detailed values, values of safety and environmental damage reduction were perceived to be of greatest value among five values. Second, as a result of investigating the importance of smart farm cultivation information in comparison with price, the most respondents emphasized both smart farm cultivation information and price information, and smart farm cultivation information was compared with price information. Cases were investigated to be more important with slight differences. Third, 41.4% of respondents had the price premium payment intention for fruit and vegetables grown in smart farms. Fourth, as a result of analyzing variables affecting the premium intention, the higher the health value among five values was recognized and the more important the smart farm cultivation information was, the higher the premium payment intention was.

This study was conducted to find out that winter green manure crops could be efficient replacements of expeller cake fertilizers, which were mostly imported, on environment-friendly red pepper production. Four treatments were compared under the condition of plastic film house: 1) barley (B); 2) hairy vetch (HV); 3) mixtures of barley and hairy vetch (B/HV); 4) expeller cake (EC). Total nitrogen content in hariy vetch was 3.6%, which was higher than 1.5~1.8% in barley and mixtures of barley and hairy vetch. P2O5 and K2O contents were similar in all green manures. Supplying amount of nitrogen from B, HV and B/HV plot, which were 172 kg ha-1, 193 kg ha-1, and 198 kg ha-1, were higher than amount of basal nitrogen required by soil testing but were lower than that of total nitrogen, respectively. Among the green manure crops, C/N ratio of HV was the lowest at 11.8, showing a similar value to that of expeller cake, but that of B was the highest at 30.6. Total yield was no significant difference in all treatment plots although B/HV plot showed the highest yield, but initial yield in B plot with high C/N ratio was lower than that in EC plot.

Food safety is a fundamental requirement for consumers. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the freshness of pork fillets based on freshness index (Ki value) analysis during storage. This study obtained a total of 24 pork fillets. This study was divided into 4℃ and -20℃ temperatures. Again, each temperature was divided into 4 different groups based on storage durations (15d). Each group was obtained in triplicate. The level of malondialdehyde (MDA) value was significantly increased at 4℃ than the -20℃ storage with the duration of storage days. The levels of inosine-5'-phosphate (IMP) in pork fillets were significantly decreased at 4℃ and -20℃. Hypoxanthine (Hx) levels were significantly increased at 15 days than those at 0 days during storage at both temperatures (4℃ and -20℃). Subsequent freezing increased more inosine levels at -20℃ than storage at 4℃. The Ki values were increased during storage days at both temperatures, although after 15d storage, its values at 4℃ were significantly higher than those at -20℃. These results demonstrated that storage period and temperature might affect the freshness of pork fillets via lipid oxidation and nucleotide degradation. This study suggested that the Ki value will be the crucial indicator of measurement of freshness of stored pork fillets.