• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.71-76
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• 2015

Developed countries have set seed industry as a new growth engine, which demands strong support from the government. Multinational seed companies such as Monsanto and DuPont have made huge financial investment to secure their major roles in the global market. To spur domestic seed industry performance, Korean government laid out the foundation for developing seed industry through policy promotion in the late 2000s. In this paper, I look at the current state of the domestic and international seed market to provide information for improving the efficiency of the propulsion of the Golden Seed Project (GSP) along with its vision. The increasing size of global giant companies has been regarded to monopolize the world seed industry wherein ten renowned companies occupy 73% of the overall global market. In effect, this causes a price hike due to limited seed choices. Domestic seed market has been stuck in a range due to a sustained low agricultural production resulting in decreased seed demand and market size. Though breeding technologies for rice and vegetables are world-class, the technologies for top global crops such as cabbage, paprika, and forage are insufficient therefore professionals in this field are not easily employed. Moreover, there is a lack in appropriate infrastructure set up in the universities which adds to ineffective training of professionals. Being a key-supporting industry for agriculture, seed industry should be granted with strong and sustainable investment support from the government. In view thereof, GSP, which started in 2012, ambitions to spur researches outlined by excellent professionals in universities and seed companies aimed to drive seed export volume and quality and attain domestic seed self-sufficiency through adoption of export- and import-substitution seed types (10 varieties each) development strategies. To develop Korea's seed industry excellent achievement of GSP's goals should be drawn successfully and to do this beside development of high quality seeds, support programs for promotion of seed exports are also needed.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.22-33
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• 1978

To maintain the self-sufficiency of food production , it is required to improved the productivity and increase the effective utilization of land in the double cropping areas using improved cultivation technology. The following reasons encourage this cours of action because the overlapping rice harvest and barely seeding seasons complete for labour, the lower price of barley makes it financially less attractive to grow and these two facts together are responsible for a decrease in barley being planted in certain more seasonably marginal double cropping areas. Fro these reasons, it is desirable to carry out tests to improve the current cultivation techniques . In this interest , the following studies were carried out in the experimental field located at Banweol-myeon, Whasung-jkun, Gyeonggi-do from October 1977 to July 1978 in order to establish the mechanical method of barley cultivation using the power tiller. The summarized results are as follows. 1. The work performance in the seeding operation using the rotary barley seeder was 68 minutes per 10 ares which compares favourably with 408 min/10a using the conventional method. This is only one sixth of the time required by th conventional method. The operating costs using the rotary barley seeder was 1, 463 won per 10 areas as against 3, 486 Won per 10 ares for the conventional method, showing a saving of about 50% in comparison with the conventional method. 2. In the manure spreading operation, the work performance was 25 min/10a for the manure spreading machine , compared to 1089 min/10a for the manual operations. This is about one fourth of the time required by the conventional method, The operating costs were 810 Won/10a for the machine and 857 Won/10a for the manual labour. This cost shows little advantage by the machine over the manual labor costs. The conventional method of manure spreading will continue pending decision which will develope and improve the machine.3. Work performance in the rolling operation using the barley rolIer was 30 min/lOa which compares favourably with 135 min/10a using conventional method. This was one fourth of the time required by the conventional method. The operating costs were 514 Won/103. for the machine and 1, 003 Won/lOa for manual labour. In the weed control operation, the work performance and operating costs were 45min/lOa, 1, 399won/10a for the herbcide application using the power sprayer, 1, 149min/10a 8, 541won/lOa for the conventional method respectively. This is 26 times higher efficiency in comparison to the conventional method. 4. In the harvesting operation using the reaper binder and tiller attachment, the work performance was 60min/lOa and represents a cost of 2, 039won/10a. The con\ulcornerventional method took 640min/10a at a cost of 4, 757won/lOa. The reaper binder showns a saving of one tenth over the conventional method. The automatic thresher is already recommended for the current situations, and is now being used. 5. From a comparison of the results of the above trials, the serial cultivation system using the attachment for the power tiller such as the rotary barley seeder is now to be recommended for the current barley cultivation system. It is also recommend from these results that the mechanized technology now available must be used to improve and maintain the increase in barley production. It is seen th1t this is the only course now avaihble to solve the peak seasonal requirements of labour needed for l11rvesting and seeding between rice and barley cultivation.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.42 no.11
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• pp.911-920
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• 2009

Virtual water is defined as the volume of water required to produce a commodity or service. The degree of food self-sufficiency is currently about 27 % in South Korea, so that Korea is one of the largest net virtual water import countries for agricultural product, thus it is necessary to estimate suitable virtual water for South Korea. The objective of this paper is to quantify the agricultural virtual water use (AWU) and virtual water content (VWC) using the method suggested by Chapagain and Hoekstra during the period 1991-2007. To calculate the virtual water content, 44 different crop production quantity and harvested area data were collected for 17 years and FAO Penman-Monteith equation was adapted for computing crop consumptive use of water. As the results, AWU has been estimated at 15.1 billion $m^3$ in average showing a tendency to decrease. Rice has the largest share in the AWU, consuming about 10.1 billion $m^3$/yr which is about 75 % of gross AWU, and the VWC is 1600.1 $m^3$/ton for paddy rice. The largest VWCs of crops are oilseed and tuber crop, and the smallest are leaf and root vegetables. The primary crop production VWC can be used for calculating the VWC of various secondary products using the contribution ratio, therefore the results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for national agricultural water footprint.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.5_1
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• pp.521-535
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• 2023

When converting rice fields into fields,sorghum (sorghum bicolor L. Moench) has excellent moisture resistance, enabling stable production along with soybeans. Therefore, it is a crop that is expected to improve the self-sufficiency rate of domestic food crops and solve the rice supply-demand imbalance problem. However, there is a lack of fundamental statistics,such as cultivation fields required for estimating yields, due to the traditional survey method, which takes a long time even with a large manpower. In this study, U-Net was applied to RGB images based on unmanned aerial vehicle to confirm the possibility of non-destructive segmentation of sorghum cultivation fields. RGB images were acquired on July 28, August 13, and August 25, 2022. On each image acquisition date, datasets were divided into 6,000 training datasets and 1,000 validation datasets with a size of 512 × 512 images. Classification models were developed based on three classes consisting of Sorghum fields(sorghum), rice and soybean fields(others), and non-agricultural fields(background), and two classes consisting of sorghum and non-sorghum (others+background). The classification accuracy of sorghum cultivation fields was higher than 0.91 in the three class-based models at all acquisition dates, but learning confusion occurred in the other classes in the August dataset. In contrast, the two-class-based model showed an accuracy of 0.95 or better in all classes, with stable learning on the August dataset. As a result, two class-based models in August will be advantageous for calculating the cultivation fields of sorghum.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.39-51
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• 1976

As an accempt to increase thc efficiency of land use and the food production to achieve the national goal in the food self-sufficiency, nine cropping systems on the upper-land were examined in pure-stand and in mixtures of soybean, corn, potato and radish. The important conclusions of this study were summarized as follows; 1. The flowering date of soybean was two or three days earlier in pure-stand than in the mixture with corn. The maturing date two days earlier in the pure-stand than in the mixture with corn. The flowering and maturing dates were not different among various cropping systems in corn. 2. The stem length of soybean was significantly different among various cropping systems. Soybean in pure-stand was shorter in stem length than with corn. 3. The number of pods per soybean plant did not give any significant differences among various cultivation methods. 4. The length of internode and the number of nodes per soybean plant in the mixture with corn were greater than in the pure-stand. In the number of branches per plant this was reversed. 5. The average stem dry weight of soybean per 10a was not significantly different among various cultivation methods. 6. The soybean yield per 10a in the pure-stand was obviously greater than the mixture and there were significant differences among cultivation method within the mixture with corn in soybean yield. 7. The 1,000-grain weight of soybean was significantly different and those in the pure-stand was heavier than those in the mixture with corn. 8. Grain weight per soybean plant and the stem diameter in the pure-stand were significantly lesser than those in the mixture with corn. 9. In the comparisons of corn in the pure-stand and in the mixture with soybean, plant height, number of ear per 10a, mean ear weight and remember of grain per plant, 100-grain weight, ear length, ear girth and number of ear pel plant were not significantly different among various cultivation methods except for the grain yield per 10a. 10. In the economic analysis, the mixture with soybean and corn gave the greatest gross income. The combination 7 was the best which was 47.6% increase income comparing with the soybean pure-stand. 11. As it can be assumed, soybean plant was influenced greatly than corn by various cropping system. It is necessary to study more complex cropping system finding and giving more desirable multiple cropping system for the farmer.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.47
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• pp.15-32
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• 2002

The endeavors enhancing the grain quality of high-yielding japonica rice were steadily continued during 1980s-1990s along with the self-sufficiency of rice production and the increasing demands of high-quality rices. During this time, considerably great progress and success was obtained in development of high-quality japonica cultivars and quality evaluation techniques including the elucidation of interrelationship between the physicochemical properties of rice grain and the physical or palatability components of cooked rice. In 1990s, some high-quality japonica rice cultivars and special rices adaptable for food processing such as large kernel, chalky endosperm, aromatic and colored rices were developed and its objective preference and utility was also examined by a palatability meter, rapid-visco analyzer and texture analyzer, Recently, new special rices such as extremely low-amylose dull or opaque non-glutinous endosperm mutants were developed. Also, a high-lysine rice variety was developed for higher nutritional utility. The water uptake rate and the maximum water absorption ratio showed significantly negative correlations with the K/Mg ratio and alkali digestion value(ADV) of milled rice. The rice materials showing the higher amount of hot water absorption exhibited the larger volume expansion of cooked rice. The harder rices with lower moisture content revealed the higher rate of water uptake at twenty minutes after soaking and the higher ratio of maximum water uptake under the room temperature condition. These water uptake characteristics were not associated with the protein and amylose contents of milled rice and the palatability of cooked rice. The water/rice ratio (in w/w basis) for optimum cooking was averaged to 1.52 in dry milled rices (12% wet basis) with varietal range from 1.45 to 1.61 and the expansion ratio of milled rice after proper boiling was average to 2.63(in v/v basis). The major physicochemical components of rice grain associated with the palatability of cooked rice were examined using japonica rice materials showing narrow varietal variation in grain size and shape, alkali digestibility, gel consistency, amylose and protein contents, but considerable difference in appearance and texture of cooked rice. The glossiness or gross palatability score of cooked rice were closely associated with the peak, hot paste and consistency viscosities of viscosities with year difference. The high-quality rice variety "IIpumbyeo" showed less portion of amylose on the outer layer of milled rice grain and less and slower change in iodine blue value of extracted paste during twenty minutes of boiling. This highly palatable rice also exhibited very fine net structure in outer layer and fine-spongy and well-swollen shape of gelatinized starch granules in inner layer and core of cooked rice kernel compared with the poor palatable rice through image of scanning electronic microscope. Gross sensory score of cooked rice could be estimated by multiple linear regression formula, deduced from relationship between rice quality components mentioned above and eating quality of cooked rice, with high probability of determination. The $\alpha$-amylose-iodine method was adopted for checking the varietal difference in retrogradation of cooked rice. The rice cultivars revealing the relatively slow retrogradation in aged cooked rice were IIpumbyeo, Chucheongyeo, Sasanishiki, Jinbubyeo and Koshihikari. A Tonsil-type rice, Taebaegbyeo, and a japonica cultivar, Seomjinbyeo, showed the relatively fast deterioration of cooked rice. Generally, the better rice cultivars in eating quality of cooked rice showed less retrogradation and much sponginess in cooled cooked rice. Also, the rice varieties exhibiting less retrogradation in cooled cooked rice revealed higher hot viscosity and lower cool viscosity of rice flour in amylogram. The sponginess of cooled cooked rice was closely associated with magnesium content and volume expansion of cooked rice. The hardness-changed ratio of cooked rice by cooling was negatively correlated with solids amount extracted during boiling and volume expansion of cooked rice. The major physicochemical properties of rice grain closely related to the palatability of cooked rice may be directly or indirectly associated with the retrogradation characteristics of cooked rice. The softer gel consistency and lower amylose content in milled rice revealed the higher ratio of popped rice and larger bulk density of popping. The stronger hardness of rice grain showed relatively higher ratio of popping and the more chalky or less translucent rice exhibited the lower ratio of intact popped brown rice. The potassium and magnesium contents of milled rice were negatively associated with gross score of noodle making mixed with wheat flour in half and the better rice for noodle making revealed relatively less amount of solid extraction during boiling. The more volume expansion of batters for making brown rice bread resulted the better loaf formation and more springiness in rice breed. The higher protein rices produced relatively the more moist white rice bread. The springiness of rice bread was also significantly correlated with high amylose content and hard gel consistency. The completely chalky and large grain rices showed better suitability far fermentation and brewing. The glutinous rice were classified into nine different varietal groups based on various physicochemical and structural characteristics of endosperm. There was some close associations among these grain properties and large varietal difference in suitability to various traditional food processing. Our breeding efforts on improvement of rice quality for high palatability and processing utility or value-adding products in the future should focus on not only continuous enhancement of marketing and eating qualities but also the diversification in morphological, physicochemical and nutritional characteristics of rice grain suitable for processing various value-added rice foods.ice foods.