• Journal of Climate Change Research
• /
• v.2 no.4
• /
• pp.297-307
• /
• 2011

This study investigates relation of food safety incidents with climate. Therefore food safety incidents and climate data during 1999 to 2009 have been analyzed. In situ observations of monthly mean temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity in 60 observation stations of Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA) have been used in this study. Food safety incidents data have been constructed by searching media reports following Park's method (2009) during the same period. According to the Park's method, 729 events were collected. To analyze its relations, food safety incidents data have been classified into chemical, biological, and physical hazards. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients have been applied to analyze the relations. The correlation of food safety incidents has negative one with precipitation (-0.48), and positive one with minimum temperature(0.45). Precipitation has been correlated with biological and physical hazards more than chemical hazard. Temperatures (mean temperature, maximum temperature, and minimum temperature) have been correlated closely with chemical hazard than others. Food safety incidents data has been interblended with human behavior factor through decision-making processes in food manufacturing, processing, and consumption phases of "farm-totable" food processing. Act in the preventing damage will be obvious if the hazard were apparent. Therefore abnormal condition could be more dangerous than that of apparent extreme events because apparent events or extreme events become one of alarm over hazards. Therefore, human behavior should be considered as one of the important factors for analysis of food safety incidents. The result of this study can be used as a better case study for food safety researches related to climate change.