• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.51-67
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• 1996

There are three main rice-growing regions in the United States: the prairie region along the Mississippi River Valley in eastern Arkansas; the Gulf Coast prairie region in southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas; and the Central Valley of California. The Central Valley of California is producing about 23% of the US rice(Fig. 1). In California. most of the crop has been produced in the Colusa, Sutter, Butte, Glenn Counties of the Sacramento Valley since 1912, when rice was commercially grown for the first time in the state(Fig. 2). Roughly speaking, the average annual area sown to rice in California is about 300,000 acres to 400,000 acres during the last forty years(Fig. 3). California rice is grown under a Mediterranean climate characterized by warm, dry, clear days, and a long growing season favorable to high photosynthetic rates and high rice yields. The average rice yield per acre is probably higher in California than in any other rice-growing regions of the world(Fig. 4). A dependable supply of irrigation water must be available for a successful rice culture. Most of the irrigation water for California rice comes from the winter rain and snow-fed reservoir of the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges. Less than 10 percent of rice irrigation water is pumped from wells in areas where surface water is not sufficient. It is also essential to have good surface drainage if maximum yields are to be produced. Rice production in California is highly mechanized, requiring only about four hours of labor per acre. Mechanization of rice culture in California includes laser-leveler technology, large tractors, self-propelled combines for harvesting, and aircraft for seeding, pest control, and some fertilization. The principal varieties grown in California are medium-grain japonica types with origins from the cooler rice climates of the northern latitudes (Table 1). Long-grain varieties grown in the American South are not well adapted to California's cooler environment. Nearly all the rice grown recently in California are improved into semidwarf varieties. Choice of variety depends on environment, planting date, quality desired, marketing, and harvesting scheduling. The Rice Experiment Station at Biggs is owned, financed, and administered by the rice industry. The station was established in 1912, as a direct result of the foresight and effort of Charles Edward Chambliss of the United States Department of Agriculture. Now, The station's major effort is the development of improved rice varieties for California.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.37-52
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• 2000

Generally speaking, the metropolitan agricultural regions have some advantages from the high accessibility to markets. But agriculture inevitably rests on the biological process. This study shows what characteristics of the agricultural management are found in these less favored metropolitan areas with bad natural conditions and how farm household live there. From the view point of farm household, the quality of labors they can get is quite low, and insufficient in quantity. The shortage of labor can be made up for the farming on Trust Farming System And the relatively less favored agricultural conditions prevent people from immigrating into these kind of areas, if they don't have any relationship with there. With bad natural conditions, the farm households usually cultivate relatively small areas for the purpose of self-sufficiency, and with smaller cultivating units(Baemi) of the land than in open fields. The scale of the agricultural management is largely affected by the ages of agricultural managers. The more aged the managers are, the smaller scale of the agricultural management. How to use lands is determined in accordance with the natural conditions such as percentage of sunshine and accessibility to drainage facilities -the two major factors- and more. Either owner-run farmlands or leased farmlands doesn't show any difference in each growing crops. Depending on the conditions of the lands, rice paddy is used for growing rice and field is used for growing self sufficient plants including vegetables for the farm household. Although the lack of infrastructure causes the inconvenience of living, and there exist less favored agricultural conditions, this kind of life and agricultural management style -self-sufficiency type- seems to be sustained quite longer. The less favored natural conditions for farming keeps the agricultural management style from being developed to be the level of commercialization. And the poor economic situation of farmers are continuing again and again. With the result of this study, there should be two conditions to be established previously if they want to develop these regions. First, each farm household should get to know of the importance of commercialization and try to spread it. The commercialization. should be attained through the expansion of the environmental friendly agriculture and the improvement of the previously established distribution system of the crops. Secondly, there should be a support from the government. The support will include the expansion of the infrastructures for fanning to improve the fanning conditions and the compensation system directly from the government to the farmers.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.95-118
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• 2010

This study aims to investigate the spatial distribution of major soil types in Korea, and to assess the ability to predict soil distribution using environmental variables. A classification tree method was used to assess soil predictability. While the great soil groups can give more intuitive understandings on their spatial distributions, its predictability using environmental factors is much lower than that of the great groups. The most important factor to determine the spatial distribution of major soil types is the geomorphological characteristic of Korea that shows distinctive morphological difference between mountains and plains. Spatial distribution of climatic variables and catenary soil sequence along slopes play additional roles in determining the distribution of soil types. The classification tree models resulted in 35-75% of prediction accuracy, depends on the combination of different environmental variables brought in the models. While geomorphological variables are the best predictors for the great groups, climatic variables perform better for the great soil groups.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.99-113
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to find out about the cause and adaptation process of urban households going to rural areas for agricultural management(Kwihyang nongga) through the microscopic analysis of a case study. Research results are summarized in the followings. The cause of Kwihyang nongga before the 1980s was generally due to the social causes like the support of dependent family or rural-to-urban migrants' maladjustment in urban society. After the 1980s, however, it was related to the economic reasons such as the increase of households' income by commercial agriculture more than the social ones. Most of Kwihyang nongga was traditionally the households which came back to their native places, rural areas. Recently the urban households which did not originally come from rural areas are going to rural space because of the cultivation of high profit oriented agricultural products. Recent Kwihyang nongga increased the size of commercial agriculture through leased farmland, not by a purchase of agricultural land. Even though the number of Kwihyang nongga is now a few, it is expected that the influence of Kwihyang nongga on rural society will be various and high because it consists of young generation. The increase of Kwihyang nongga may be one of the ways to mitigate the decreasing rate of utilization of agricultural lands due to the labor shortage of rural areas after industrialization. To solve rural problems related to underpopulation, it is necessary to establish the active plicies of helping Kwihyang nongga. The actions for Kwihyang nongga ought to emphasize the improvement of educational conditions and living facilities as well as financial aids and the improvement of farming conditions.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.451-468
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• 2022

Leading enterprises in contract farming are in control of agricultural production and influence the structure of the agricultural system in contract areas. This study focuses on the contract farming of potatoes for manufacturing chips, which uses a high proportion of domestic raw materials, and identifies the characteristics of contract farming between confectionery company 𐩒 and potato farms in Haean-myeon, Yanggu-gun, Gangwon-do. This study also analyzes the impact of contract farming on local agriculture from the perspective of the industrialization of agriculture. The results of this study demonstrated that contracting companies ensured the quality of potatoes and smooth agricultural operations by first preferentially selecting farmhouses with land that is easy to work with and then supplying the necessary agricultural machinery to promote the intensification of their work. In addition, contracting companies influenced the centralization of the agriculture sector by selecting farmhouses capable of contracting over a certain scale and guaranteeing them sales channels and the specialization of potato farming in contract areas, mainly through the supply of processing varieties and the spread of cultivation technology. The results confirmed that these three dimensions of contract farming promoted the industrialization of local agriculture.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.59-83
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• 2012

Agriculture is a primary industry that influenced by the weather or meterological factors more than other industry. Global warming and worldwide climate changes, and unusual weather phenomena are fatal in agricultural industry and human life. Therefore, many previous studies have been made to find the relationship between weather and the productivity of agriculture. Meterological factors also influence on the distribution of agricultural product. For example, price of agricultural product is determined in the market, and also influenced by the weather of the market. However, there is only a few study was made to find this link. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of meterological factors on the distribution of agricultural products, focusing on the distribution of chinese cabbages. Chinese cabbage is a main ingredient of Kimchi, and basic essential vegetable in Korean dinner table. However, the production of chinese cabbages is influenced by weather and very fluctuating so that the variation of its price is so unstable. Therefore, both consumers and farmers do not feel comfortable at the unstable price of chinese cabbages. In this study, we analyze the real transaction data of chinese cabbage in wholesale markets and meterological factors depending on the variety and geography. We collect and analyze data of meterological factors such as temperatures, humidity, cloudiness, rainfall, snowfall, wind speed, insolation, sunshine duration in producing and consuming region of chinese cabbages. The result of this study shows that the meterological factors such as temperature and humidity significantly influence on the volume and price of chinese cabbage transaction in wholesale market. Especially, the weather of consuming region has greater correlation effects on transaction than that of producing region in all types of chinese cabbages. Among the whole agricultural lifecycle of chinese cabbages, 'seeding - harvest - shipment - wholesale', meterological factors such as temperature and rainfall in shipment and wholesale period are significantly correlated with transaction volume and price of crops. Based on the result of correlation analysis, we make a regression analysis to verify the meterological factors' effects on the volume and price of chines cabbage transaction in wholesale market. The results of stepwise regression analysis are shown in