This study aims to analyze the recent production and consumption patterns of environment-friendly agri-foods, and to present the prospect for expansion of market volume in consideration of changes in domestic and global circumstances.
The introduction of this report describes the need and goal of this study, a review of previous studies, and the scope of this study. Chapter 2 describes Korea’s current production of environment-friendly agri-foods, including environment-friendly agricultural produce, certified organic processed food, and certified imported organic agricultural products. Chapter 3 describes the purchasing and consumption patterns of environment-friendly agri-foods, which includes environment-friendly agricultural produce and environment- friendly processed food. Chapter 4 presents the market volume and prospects of Korea’s environment-friendly agri-foods. Chapter 5 presents the current production and market volume of global organic agriculture. Chapter 6 presents the summary and conclusion.
As the Korean government positively supported environment-friendly farming as a growth engine of future agriculture, production of environment- friendly agricultural products showed a sharp annual increase of 120% in early 2000s, but the growth rate has significantly slowed down for the last five years (2007~2011). Despite such a slowdown, however, it still continued to grow by approximately 12% every year. In 2011, certified environment- friendly agricultural products increased by 24.5% from the previous year and both organic and chemical-free produce increased by 0.8%. As the production of low-chemical produce decreased by 30.8%, the overall production of environment-friendly products decreased by 11.0% from 2010.
As of 2011, the market volume of certified environment-friendly agricultural products by farming method was 190,912 tons (10.5%) for organically cultivated products, 915,823 tons (50.3%) for products cultivated without use of agricultural chemicals, and 712,493 tons (39.2%) for products produced with low-agricultural chemical agricultural inputs. Non-chemical products clearly make up the largest proportion, which is further divided into 404,825 tons (22.3%) for grains, 433,346 tons (23.8%) for fruits, and 701,894 tons (38.6%) for vegetables which had the largest share.
A consumer survey on environment-friendly agri-foods revealed that more people are willing to buy environment-friendly agricultural products. 41.1% of those who have purchased environment-friendly agricultural produce previously said that they would buy more such fresh products in the future and 74.3% of those who said they have never bought the products said that they will buy them. In the case of environment-friendly processed agri-foods, 52.3% of those who have purchased them before said they will buy more such products and 77.1% of people who have never bought them before said they will buy such products.
The first thing that should be improved for promoting consumption of environment-friendly agri-foods is a means of ‘price reduction’ of both environment-friendly agricultural products and environment-friendly processed agri-foods, followed by access to reasonable shops to buy such products and improvement of the certification system.’ It was revealed that price premiums of organic agricultural products for people who had purchased them were 51~79%, and optimum premiums were 37~52%. The price premium of organic processed food was 2.0 times of conventional products, and the optimum premium was 1.5 times of them. It is assumed that it would be possible to expand the consumption if the price premium is lowered by approximately 20% for organic agricultural products, and by approximately 50% for organic processed food. Meanwhile, it is assumed that people who have not purchased environment-friendly agricultural produce and organic processed food would purchase them if the price premium is lowered by approximately 29% for environment-friendly agricultural produce, and approximately 60% for organic processed food. With respect to the shops for buying environment-friendly agri-foods, large discount stores accounted for the greatest proportion with 40% for both environment-friendly agricultural products and organic processed food.
With respect to contribution to family’s health, environment-friendly agricultural produce accounted for 72.0%, and environment-friendly processed agri-foods accounted for 70.7%. An ordered logit analysis revealed that future consumption would increase if environment-friendly agricultural products are recognized to be contributing much to family’s health. This suggests that it is necessary to bring out and publicize the positive effect of environment- friendly agri-foods for promotion of family’s health.
It is estimated that Korea’s market volume of environment-friendly agricultural products in 2011 decreased by 3.8% from the previous year to 3.26 trillion won. The reason for the reduced market volume is presumed to be due to a decrease in the cultivation areas certified for low-chemical use and due to the implementation of a more strict certification system for environment-friendly agricultural products.
In 2012, it is predicted that the market volume of environment-friendly agricultural products will increase by approximately 13% from 2011 to 3.68 trillion won. The prediction for low-chemical agricultural products is as follows: they will continue to decrease by 2015, but a steady increases of organic and chemical-free agricultural products will contribute to increasing the market volume to 3.98 trillion won in 2013 and to 4.83 trillion won in 2015; and the market volume will increase to 6.9 trillion won in 2020 to account for 20% of the entire transactions of agricultural products.
It is predicted that the volume of certified low-chemical agricultural products will sharply decrease in a short period of time due to the abolition of the low-chemical certification system. Therefore, it is necessary to develop positive policy programs to lead the farmers of low-chemical cultivation to organic and chemical-free cultivation.
It is also necessary to take proper measures in the fields of production and distribution of environment-friendly agri-foods to lower price premiums and promote their consumption, and build up an comprehensive certification system for reliable environment-friendly agri-foods. Also, it is necessary to diversify the items of organic processed food to provide a wider range of selection choices to consumers. Positively utilizing the school catering system as a means for expanding the route for selling environment-friendly agricultural products, and to positively publicize the effect of environment- friendly agri-foods on healthy living and the environment can also contribute towards these goals.


Researchers: Chang-Gil Kim, Hak-Kyun Jeong, and Dong-Hyun Moon
Research period: 2011. 12. - 2012. 2.
E-mail address: changgil@krei.re.kr