• Title/Summary/Keyword: Freshness

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The Effect of the Characteristics of Agri-Food Open Market on the Repurchase Intention: Focusing on the Moderating Effect of Innovation (농식품 오픈 마켓 특성이 재구매 의도에 미치는 영향: 혁신성의 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Kim, Sangmi;Ha, Gyusu
    • Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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    • v.16 no.4
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    • pp.153-165
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    • 2021
  • With the disappearance of boundaries between online and offline, the O2O(online to offline) platform service is rapidly growing. Unlike general products, freshness is an important decision-making factor for agri-food, and there are many limiting factors for growth as an open market among O2O platforms due to the characteristics of difficult refunds and exchanges compared to other items and new transaction methods. In order to overcome these obstacles, consumer innovation must be considered. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of O2O(online to offline) platform characteristics perception on agri-food repurchase intentions. And an empirical survey of the hypothesis is made that innovation will show a moderating effect between agri-food O2O platform characteristics and repurchase intention. And an empirical survey of the hypothesis is made that innovation will show a moderating effect between agri-food O2O platform characteristics and repurchase intention. For this purpose, Using a convenience sampling technique, an online survey was conducted through Google survey from April 1 to April 15, 2021. A total of final analysis data were collected from a total of 270 purchase experienced of agri-food O2O(online to offline) platform. The SPSS program was used for analysis, and multiple regression analysis was used for hypothesis verification. The results showed that Economic, Interaction, and Playfulness had a significant positive effect on agri-food repurchase intend. Also, Interactivity × innovation, playfulness × innovation were found to have a significant positive (+) effect on repurchase intention. The results of this study show that innovation reduces the burden on consumers for new systems and mobile transactions. The results of this study suggest that convenient interface design is important for activating O2O transactions of agri-food. In addition, education and support are needed to strengthen the IT competency of farmers. The results of this study will be able to contribute to the establishment of infrastructure for agri-food open market shopping malls. In future studies, the influence of the O2O platform type on the purchase intention should be studied continuously.

Effects of quality grade, trimming, and packaging method on shelf life of king oyster mushrooms (큰느타리의 품질 등급, 손질 및 포장 방법에 따른 유통 수명)

  • Choi, Ji-Weon;Lee, Ji Hyun;Oh, In-Ho;Lim, Sooyeon;Im, Ji-Hoon;Yang, Hae Jo;Choi, Hyunjin;Shin, Sheob;Hong, Yoon Pyo
    • Journal of Mushroom
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    • v.19 no.3
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    • pp.234-245
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    • 2021
  • To extend the shelf life of king oyster mushrooms for export, we investigated the impacts of mushroom quality grade, fruiting body trimming, and packaging method (tray container sealed packaging vs string-tied OPP bag packaging). Quality is divided into two grades: 1st grade, which is mushrooms adapted by lowering the cultivation temperature to 9~11℃, and 2nd grade, mushrooms held at 13~15℃ prior to harvest. Using selected 1st and 2nd grade mushrooms, 3 treatments were carried out to assess effects of trimming and packaging method. Test groups included 1) trimming plus string-tied OPP bag packaging (Cut & OPP), 2) no trimming plus string-tied OPP bag packaging (Uncut & OPP), and 3) trimming plus tray container sealing packaging (Cut & Tray). Gas composition inside the packaging, changes in quality factors, and sensory evaluation for fresh quality were performed over 42 days of 0℃ storage. Overall freshness was best maintained in the following order: Cut & Tray > Cut & OPP > Uncut & OPP for both 1st and 2nd grade mushrooms. The shelf-life of 1st grade mushrooms was about 30 days for Cut & Tray, 28 days for Cut & OPP, and 21 days for Uncut & OPP. The shelf-life of 2nd grade mushrooms was about 22 days for Cut & Tray, 17 ays for Cut & OPP, and 14 days for Uncut & OPP. Factors affecting fresh mushroom quality included browning of cap and stalk, and mushroom decay index. Browning of the lower part of the stalk, with related color change as noted in a* and b* values were the main factors indicating quality deterioration of king oyster mushrooms.

The Effects of a Brief Intervention for Insomnia on Community Dwelling Older Adults (지역 사회 노인을 대상으로 한 불면증 단기 치료 프로그램의 효과)

  • Oh, Eui Sun;Park, Kyung Mee;An, Suk Kyoon;Namkoong, Kee;Shim, Da-hye;Lee, Eun
    • Sleep Medicine and Psychophysiology
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    • v.25 no.2
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    • pp.74-81
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    • 2018
  • Objectives: Insomnia is one of the major concerns in the elderly population. Cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia is the first line treatment option, but there are some limitations including time and cost burdens and the requirement for sufficient cognitive resources to obtain a proper treatment effect. The Brief intervention for insomnia (BII) is a treatment that focuses on behavioral aspects of insomnia in primary care practices. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of BII in community-dwelling older adults. Methods: A total of 47 older adults with insomnia were enrolled from community centers between May 2016 and January 2018. They participated in the BII program for three weeks. We gathered sleep-related participant information with using the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), the Sleep hygiene index, and a sleep diary. Clinical efficacy was evaluated by comparing total sleep time (TST), sleep latency (SL), waking after sleep onset (WASO), and sleep efficiency (SE) before and after the treatment. Results: There was significant improvement in sleep-related features after BII. Global score and sleep quality from the PSQI, freshness, and WASO from the sleep diary showed statistically significant improvement. Conclusion: We found BII showed positive clinical efficacy in community dwelling older adults, especially from the perspective of subjective sleep quality and WASO. This finding implies that BII can be effectively applied for the managment of elderly insomnia patients in a community setting.

Meal kit purchasing behavior and relationship with the nutrition quotient of young adults in Chungnam (충남 일부지역 젊은 성인의 밀키트 구매행태 및 영양지수와의 관련성)

  • Lee, Eun-Young;Kim, Yu-Mi;Choi, Mi-Kyeong
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.54 no.5
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    • pp.534-546
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    • 2021
  • Purpose: This study aimed at understanding meal kit purchasing behavior and investigating its relationship with the Nutrition Quotient (NQ) of young adults. Methods: We conducted a survey on adults in their 20s and 30s covering their meal kit purchase experience, satisfaction, recognition, and purchase intention, and examined the relationship between the meal kit purchase and their NQ from February to March 2021. Results: Among the 404 subjects, 37.9% of males and 48.0% of females had experience in purchasing a meal kit (p < 0.001). The highest response indicated that the purchase cost of meal kits was 10,000-20,000 Won at a time, and the frequency of purchase was less than once a month. The convenience of cooking was the main reason for the purchase of meal kits, which were consumed mainly in the evening with family. The satisfaction with the purchase experience of a meal kit was rated 3.6 points for males and 3.7 points for females out of 5 points, and the satisfaction experienced by women was significantly higher than men in terms of freshness of ingredients, packaging design, and adequacy of the quantity of content (p < 0.05). Recognition of the meal kit was rated 3.5 points for males and 3.7 points for females out of 5 points. The purchase intention of the meal kit was rated 3.8 points for those with prior purchase experience, 3.2 points for the non-experienced, 3.3 points for males, and 3.6 points for females out of 5 points each (p < 0.001). The NQ score of dietary behavior in females with experience of meal kit purchases was significantly higher than non-experience (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The dietary behavior of female showed a significant difference by the meal kit purchase experience. It is necessary to understand the consumers' meal kit purchasing behavior to enable the development of various health-oriented meal kit products.

Meaning of Plantain(Musa basjoo) Planting and Design Use through Classic Poetry and Prose (고전 시문을 통해 본 파초(Musa basjoo)의 식재 의미와 설계용도(Design Use))

  • Hong, Hyoung-Soon
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Traditional Landscape Architecture
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    • v.29 no.2
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    • pp.52-62
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    • 2011
  • By studying the classic poetry and prose with a theme of Plantain, I would like to study why Plantain has been planted in our traditional garden for a long time. Also, through this study, I want to find when Plantain was introduced to in our country. We use description study method for studying the classic poetry and prose with a theme of Plantain. As a result, we found a few things like below. First, the introduction of Plantain to our country traces back to unified Silla in the poetry of Choe Chi Won. Also, Plantain was planted and loved generally as a general garden plant in the middle of Goryeo through poetry and paintings. Second, the meaning of Plantain is like this. 1) It means development and enjoyment of arts of summer because the leaves of Plantain were used for drinking alcohol and writing and poetry instead of papers. 2) In Buddhism, Plantain was thought to awaken 'gong(空)', 'mua(無我)', and 'brevity' of lesson of Buddha by the special shape and the image of falling rain to the leaves. Also, it was used widely in Buddhist temples because of the story of 'Hye ga dan bi(慧可斷臂)'. 3) In Confucianism, it is the emblem of lesson 'a wise man tries to be strong and tries not to stop following to God'(自强不息). 4) The large leaf of Plantain is called 'bongmi(鳳尾)' thanks to the image of likeness with tails of Bongwhang(鳳凰). Third, design use of Plantain is like this. 1) The large leaf of Plantain was used for giving an image of freshness and brightness in the garden in summer. 2) Our ancestor thought 'the sound of falling rain to Plantain'(芭蕉雨聲) as a picturesque sound in summer. Also, Plantain was highly utilized because our ancestor thought Plantain is the best plant for implementing 'soundscape'. Thus, the most characteristic use of several design uses is 'acoustic use'. 3) Plantain was also planted in a indoor pot for viewing. 4) Plantain was used for making food and medicine in the palace and private house as a practical use. The limit of this study is that I mainly use the text translated into Korean of database of overall Korean classics. We hope the new things related to this study would be added up to this study by translating original texts into Korean more.

A Study on the Dynamics of Dissolved Organic Matter Associated with Ambient Biophysicochemical Factors in the Sediment Control Dam (Lake Youngju) (영주댐 유사조절지 상류의 용존유기물 (Dissolved Organic Matter) 특성과 물리·화학 및 생물학적 환경 요인과의 연관성 연구)

  • Oh, Hye-Ji;Kim, Dokyun;Choi, Jisoo;Chae, Yeon-Ji;Oh, Jong Min;Shin, Kyung-Hoon;Choi, Kwangsoon;Kim, Dong-Kyun;Chang, Kwang-Hyeon
    • Korean Journal of Ecology and Environment
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    • v.54 no.4
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    • pp.346-362
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    • 2021
  • A sediment control dam is an artificial structure built to prolong sedimentation in the main dam by reducing the inflow of suspended solids. These dams can affect changes in dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the water body by changing the river flow regime. The main DOM component for Yeongju Dam sediment control of the Naeseongcheon River was analyzed through 3D excitation-emission matrix (EEM) and parallel factor (PARAFAC) analyses. As a result, four humic-like components (C1~C3, C5), and three proteins, tryptophan-like components (C2, C6~C7) were detected. Among DOM components, humic-like components (autochthonous: C1, allochthonous: C2~C3) were found to be dominant during the sampling period. The total amount of DOM components and the composition ratio of each component did not show a difference for each depth according to the amount of available light (100%, 12%, and 1%). Throughout the study period, the allochthonous organic matter was continuously decomposing and converting into autochthonous organic matter; the DOM indices (fluorescence index, humification index, and freshness index) indicated the dominance of autochthonous organic matter in the river. Considering the relative abundance of cyanobacteria and that the number of bacteria cells and rotifers increased as autochthonous organic matter increased, it was suggested that the algal bloom and consequent activation of the microbial food web was affected by the composition of DOM in the water body. Research on DOM characteristics is important not only for water quality management but also for understanding the cycling of matter through microbial food web activity.

Effects of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) on Fruit Quality and Occurrence of Physiological Disorders of Asian Pear (Pyrus pyrifolia), 'Wonhwang' and 'Whasan', during Shelf-life (동양배 '원황' 및 '화산'의 상온유통 중 품질 및 생리장해 발생에 미치는 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) 처리의 영향)

  • Lee, Ug-Yong;Oh, Kyoung-Young;Moon, Seung-Joo;Hwang, Yong-Soo;Chun, Jong-Pil
    • Horticultural Science & Technology
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    • v.30 no.5
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    • pp.534-542
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    • 2012
  • This study was conducted to investigate the effect of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) on fruit quality and incidence of physiological disorders for keeping freshness during marketing period in Asian pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai) 'Wonhwang' and 'Whasan'. Fruits were treated with $1{\mu}L{\cdot}L^{-1}$ 1-MCP for 12 hours at $25^{\circ}C$, at two or three stages of ripeness as determined by days after full bloom (DAFB). Fruits were harvested at 130 and 140 DAFB in early season cultivar 'Wonhwang' and 135, 145, and 150 DAFB in mid-season cultivar 'Whasan', respectively. Fruits were stored at $25^{\circ}C$ for 21 days and measured the flesh firmness, weight loss, soluble solids, acidity, ethylene, respiration and severity of physiological disorders at week interval. 1-MCP treatment to 'Wonhwang' pears harvested at 130 and 140 DAFB effectively delayed firmness loss during storage at $25^{\circ}C$. Untreated fruits of 'Wonhwang' pears harvested at 130 DAFB showed 32.3 and 10.1N of firmness after 14 and 21 days of shelf-life at $25^{\circ}C$, respectively, while those of the 1-MCP treated fruits showed 39.4 and 33.1N during same period. In the fruits harvested at 140 DAFB, the firmness of untreated fruit was lowered to 14.8 and 6.6N after 14 and 21 days, respectively, but those of 1-MCP treated fruit were 35.0 and 33.3N, respectively. Whereas, 1-MCP treatment delayed firmness loss only in the fruit harvested late (150 DAFB) in 'Whasan' pears. Higher soluble solids content and acidity during extended shelf-life were apparent in 1-MCP treated 'Wonhwang' pears, while those of 'Whasan' pears were little changed. 'Wonhwang' pears showed a relatively high ethylene production (maximum $0.58{\mu}l{\cdot}L^{-1}$) in the fruits harvested late than early harvested one. 'Whasan' pears showed little amount of ethylene production regardless of extended shelf-life. 1-MCP treatment to 'Wonhwang' pears decreased respiration rate following shelf-life, 42 and 50% reduction were observed at 14 days of shelf-life when compared with those of untreated ones harvested at 130 and 140 DAFB, respectively. No reduction of respiration rate by the treatment of 1-MCP was detected in 'Whasan' pears which showed considerably low respiration rate compared with 'Wonhwang' pears. Harvest time influenced the level of physiological disorders together with extension of shelf-life in both the cultivars. 1-MCP treatment completely blocked the incidence of internal browning of 'Wonhwang' pears harvested at 130 DAFB, and reduced the incidences of pithiness and core browning, while it promoted the flesh spot decay disorder regardless of harvest time. 1-MCP treatment was of little benefit for the prevention of physiological disorders in 'Whasan' pears compared with those of 'Wonhwang'.

A Folksonomy Ranking Framework: A Semantic Graph-based Approach (폭소노미 사이트를 위한 랭킹 프레임워크 설계: 시맨틱 그래프기반 접근)

  • Park, Hyun-Jung;Rho, Sang-Kyu
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.89-116
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    • 2011
  • In collaborative tagging systems such as Delicious.com and Flickr.com, users assign keywords or tags to their uploaded resources, such as bookmarks and pictures, for their future use or sharing purposes. The collection of resources and tags generated by a user is called a personomy, and the collection of all personomies constitutes the folksonomy. The most significant need of the folksonomy users Is to efficiently find useful resources or experts on specific topics. An excellent ranking algorithm would assign higher ranking to more useful resources or experts. What resources are considered useful In a folksonomic system? Does a standard superior to frequency or freshness exist? The resource recommended by more users with mere expertise should be worthy of attention. This ranking paradigm can be implemented through a graph-based ranking algorithm. Two well-known representatives of such a paradigm are Page Rank by Google and HITS(Hypertext Induced Topic Selection) by Kleinberg. Both Page Rank and HITS assign a higher evaluation score to pages linked to more higher-scored pages. HITS differs from PageRank in that it utilizes two kinds of scores: authority and hub scores. The ranking objects of these pages are limited to Web pages, whereas the ranking objects of a folksonomic system are somewhat heterogeneous(i.e., users, resources, and tags). Therefore, uniform application of the voting notion of PageRank and HITS based on the links to a folksonomy would be unreasonable, In a folksonomic system, each link corresponding to a property can have an opposite direction, depending on whether the property is an active or a passive voice. The current research stems from the Idea that a graph-based ranking algorithm could be applied to the folksonomic system using the concept of mutual Interactions between entitles, rather than the voting notion of PageRank or HITS. The concept of mutual interactions, proposed for ranking the Semantic Web resources, enables the calculation of importance scores of various resources unaffected by link directions. The weights of a property representing the mutual interaction between classes are assigned depending on the relative significance of the property to the resource importance of each class. This class-oriented approach is based on the fact that, in the Semantic Web, there are many heterogeneous classes; thus, applying a different appraisal standard for each class is more reasonable. This is similar to the evaluation method of humans, where different items are assigned specific weights, which are then summed up to determine the weighted average. We can check for missing properties more easily with this approach than with other predicate-oriented approaches. A user of a tagging system usually assigns more than one tags to the same resource, and there can be more than one tags with the same subjectivity and objectivity. In the case that many users assign similar tags to the same resource, grading the users differently depending on the assignment order becomes necessary. This idea comes from the studies in psychology wherein expertise involves the ability to select the most relevant information for achieving a goal. An expert should be someone who not only has a large collection of documents annotated with a particular tag, but also tends to add documents of high quality to his/her collections. Such documents are identified by the number, as well as the expertise, of users who have the same documents in their collections. In other words, there is a relationship of mutual reinforcement between the expertise of a user and the quality of a document. In addition, there is a need to rank entities related more closely to a certain entity. Considering the property of social media that ensures the popularity of a topic is temporary, recent data should have more weight than old data. We propose a comprehensive folksonomy ranking framework in which all these considerations are dealt with and that can be easily customized to each folksonomy site for ranking purposes. To examine the validity of our ranking algorithm and show the mechanism of adjusting property, time, and expertise weights, we first use a dataset designed for analyzing the effect of each ranking factor independently. We then show the ranking results of a real folksonomy site, with the ranking factors combined. Because the ground truth of a given dataset is not known when it comes to ranking, we inject simulated data whose ranking results can be predicted into the real dataset and compare the ranking results of our algorithm with that of a previous HITS-based algorithm. Our semantic ranking algorithm based on the concept of mutual interaction seems to be preferable to the HITS-based algorithm as a flexible folksonomy ranking framework. Some concrete points of difference are as follows. First, with the time concept applied to the property weights, our algorithm shows superior performance in lowering the scores of older data and raising the scores of newer data. Second, applying the time concept to the expertise weights, as well as to the property weights, our algorithm controls the conflicting influence of expertise weights and enhances overall consistency of time-valued ranking. The expertise weights of the previous study can act as an obstacle to the time-valued ranking because the number of followers increases as time goes on. Third, many new properties and classes can be included in our framework. The previous HITS-based algorithm, based on the voting notion, loses ground in the situation where the domain consists of more than two classes, or where other important properties, such as "sent through twitter" or "registered as a friend," are added to the domain. Forth, there is a big difference in the calculation time and memory use between the two kinds of algorithms. While the matrix multiplication of two matrices, has to be executed twice for the previous HITS-based algorithm, this is unnecessary with our algorithm. In our ranking framework, various folksonomy ranking policies can be expressed with the ranking factors combined and our approach can work, even if the folksonomy site is not implemented with Semantic Web languages. Above all, the time weight proposed in this paper will be applicable to various domains, including social media, where time value is considered important.

A study on the improvement of distribution system by overseas agricultural investment (해외농업투자에 따른 유통체계 개선방안에 관한 연구)

  • Sun, Il-Suck;Lee, Dong-Ok
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.8 no.3
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    • pp.17-26
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    • 2010
  • Recently concerns have been raised due to the unbalanced supply of crops: the price of crops has been unstable and at one point the price went up so high that the word Agflation(agriculture+ inflation) was coined. Korea, in particular, is a small-sized country and needs to secure the stable supply of crops by investing in the produce importation at a national level. Investment in foreign produce importation is becoming more important as a measure for sufficient supply of crops, limited supply of domestic crops, weakened farming conditions worldwide, as well as recent changes in the use of crops due to the development of bio-fuels, influence of carbon emission on crops, the price increase in crops, and influx of foreign hot money. However, there are many problems with investing in foreign produce importation: lack of support from the government; lack of farming information and technology; difficulty in securing the capital; no immediate pay-off from the investment and insufficient management. Although foreign produce is originally more price-competitive than domestic produce, it loses its competiveness in the process of importation (due to high tariffs) and poor distribution system, which makes it difficult to sell in Korea. Therefore, investment in foreign produce importation is being questioned for feasibility; to make it possible, foreign produce must maintain the price-competitiveness. Especially, harvest of agricultural products depends on natural and geographical conditions of each country and those products have indigenous properties, so distribution system according to import and export of agricultural products should be treated more carefully than that of other industries. Distribution costs are differentiated into each item and include cost of sorting and wrapping, cost of wrapping materials, cost of domestic transport, cost of international transport and cost of clearing customs for import and export. So transporting and storing agricultural products generates considerable costs compared with other products. Also, due to upgrade of dietary life, needs for stability, taste and visible quality toward food including agricultural products are being raised and wrong way of storage causes decomposition of food and loss of freshness, making the storage more difficult than that in room temperature, so storage and transport in distribution of agricultural products needs specialty. In addition, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. However, existing distribution system of agricultural products is exposed to various problems including problems in distribution channel, making distribution and strategy for distribution and those problems are as follows. First, in case of investment in overseas agricultural industry, stable supply of the products is difficult because areas of production are dispersed widely and influenced by outer factors due to including overseas distribution channels. Also, at the aspect of quality, standardization of products is difficult, distribution system is quite complicated and unreasonable due to long distribution channels according to international trade and financial and institutional support is not enough. Especially, there are quite a lot of ineffective factors including multi level distribution process, dramatic gap between production cost and customer's cost, lack of physical distribution facilities and difficulties in storage and transport due to lack of wrapping containers. Besides, because import and export of agricultural products has been manages under the company's own distribution according to transaction contract between manufacturers and exporting company, efficiency is low due to excessive investment in fixed costs and lack of specialty in dealing with agricultural products causes fall of value of products, showing the limit to lose price-competitiveness. Especially, because lack of specialty in distribution and circulation such as storage and wrapping does not solve limit factors in distance, the distribution and circulation has been limited to a form of import and export within short-distant region. Therefore, need for distribution out-sourcing which can satisfy specialty in managing distribution and circulation and it is needed to establish more effective distribution system. Second, among tangible and intangible services which promote the efficiency of the whole distribution, a function building distribution environment which includes distribution information, system for standard and inspection, distribution finance, system for diversification of risks, education and training, distribution administration and tax system is wanted. In general, such a function building distribution environment is difficult to be changed and supplement innovatively because its effect compared with investment does not appear immediately despite of its necessity. Especially, in case of distribution of agricultural products, as a function of collecting and distributing is performed individually through various channels, the importance of distribution information and standardization is getting more focus due to the problem of repetition of work and lack of specialty. Also, efficient management of distribution is quite difficult due to lack of professionals in distribution, so support to professional education is needed. Third, though effort to keep self-sufficiency ratio of staple food, rice is regarded as important at the government level, level of dependency on overseas of others crops is high. Therefore, plan for stable securing food resources aside from staple food is also necessary. Especially, governmental organizations of agricultural products distribution in Korea are production-centered and have unreasonable structure whose function at the aspect of distribution and consumption is quite insufficient. And development of new distribution channels which can deal with changes in distribution environment and they do not achieve actual results of strategy for distribution due to non-positive strategy for price distribution. That is, it implies the possibility that base for supply will become vulnerable because it does not mediate appropriate interests on total distribution channels such as manufacturers, wholesale dealers and vendors by emphasizing consumer protection excessively in the distribution of agricultural products. Therefore, this study examined fundamental concept and actual situation for our investment to overseas agriculture, drew necessities, considerations, problems, etc. of overseas agricultural investment and suggested improvements at the level of distribution for price competitiveness of agricultural products cultivated in overseas under five aspects; government's indirect support, distribution's modernization and distribution information function's strengthening, government's political support for distribution facility, transportation route, load and unloading works' improvement, price competitiveness' securing, professional manpower's cultivation by education and training, etc. Here are some suggestions for foreign produce importation. First, the government should conduct a survey on the current distribution channels and analyze the situation to establish a measure for long-term development plans. By providing each agricultural area with a guideline for planning appropriate production of crops, the government can help farmers be ready for importation, and prevent them from producing same crops all at the same time. Government can sign an MOU with the foreign government and promote the importation so that the development of agricultural resources can be stable and steady. Second, the government can establish a strategy for an effective distribution system by providing farmers and agriculture-related workers with the distribution information such as price, production, demand, market structure and location, feature of each crop, and etc. In order for such distribution system to become feasible, the government needs to reconstruct the current distribution system, designate a public organization for providing distribution information and set the criteria for level of produce quality, trade units, and package units. Third, the government should provide financial support and a policy to seek an efficient distribution channel for foreign produce to be delivered fresh: the government should expand distribution facilities (for selecting, packaging, storing, and processing) and transportation vehicles while modernizing old facilities. There should be another policy to improve the efficiency of unloading, and to lower the cost of distribution. Fourth, it is necessary to enact a new law covering exceptional cases for importing produce in order to maintain the price competitiveness; currently the high tariffs is keeping the imported produce from being distributed domestically. However, the new adjustment should be made carefully within the WTO regulations since it can create a problem from giving preferential tariffs. The government can also simplify the distribution channels in order to reduce the cost in the distribution process. Fifth, the government should educate distributors to raise the efficiency and to modernize the distribution system. It is necessary to develop human resources by educating people regarding the foreign agricultural environment, the produce quality, management skills, and by introducing some successful cases in advanced countries.

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