In Korea, the developmental gap is deep between rural and urban areas in spacial aspect and, or between agricultural and industrial side. So there are much room for improvement in agri. development in national standpoint as well as in individual farmer's level. In this respect, agricultural financing is requisitive to speed up the pace of agricultural development and in result, to contribute to improvement of farm income. By the way, farmers' credit demands are always in excess-demand status and they rely on private money-lenders in the burden of high interest rate. In agricultural financing market, there are two kinds of credit ; institutional credit and non-institutional credit market, that is private money-lending. In institutional credit, there are mutual credit system operating by the primary coops and policy credit system by NACF financed by Government in part. Here, in this paper, I venture to study on the improvements of the policy credit system to increase and activate the supply function of agri. policy credit into farmers to enhance their socio-economic status.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing the Vietnamese farmers’ intention to accept organic farming based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). After in-depth interviews with five agricultural researchers and five farmers, the authors have identified a formal research model and built a complete survey. Data were collected from 318 farmers in Hanoi, Vietnam, by surveying directly at their homes or farms. Statistical methods, such as Cronbach’s alpha, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and linear regression analysis, were used to analyze the data with the help of SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24.0. The results show that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have a positive influence on farmers’ intention to accept organic farming in Vietnam. Based on the degree of impact of these factors, the authors give a few suggestions to state management agencies to promote the intention to accept organic farming in Vietnam: (i) increasing awareness of the difference between organic farming and conventional farming, the role of organic farming in health and the environment; (ii) increasing the activities of guiding the organic farming practices and facilitating the farmers to access these guides through many channels; and (iii) holding sessions to share practices in organic farming practices.

It has continuously promoted to scale up the agricultural management body in order to cope with the market-opening pressure such as the UR negotiation, the DDA negotiation, and more conclusions of FTAs and to enhance the competitiveness of our agriculture. This study evaluated the factors associated with production organization participation centered on environmentally-friendly agriculture farmers in order to improve the production efficiency of environmentally-friendly agriculture in the aspect of production. In order to achieve this objective, this study evaluated the factors that contributed to participating in an organization using the bivariate probit model focusing on environmentally-friendly agriculture farmers in Chungnam. This study examined the validity and reliability of the study model through exploratory factor analysis. The results of factor analyses identified four factors: “distribution”, “production”, “organization operation”, and “social capital”. The results of the bivariate probit model showed that distribution significantly affected production activities and distribution, organization operation, agricultural income, and gender significantly influenced sale activities. Environmentally-friendly production organization had not been able to provide the productive support that was needed for local farmers to produce environmentally-friendly agricultural products in a region. Additionally, farming education did not provide the information needed by the farmers. Although producers had a network within a production organization, it was operated mainly for administrators. Therefore, participants felt somewhat lacking. This study identified the level of organization of producer organizations in Chungnam area, where environmentally-friendly agriculture is well activated. This study suggested implications for future production organization participation by evaluating factors affecting participation quantitatively.

The purpose of this paper is three-fold: to analyze the macrotrend of North Korea’s food supply and demand; to confirm the food security situation in North Korea in various respects; and to seek the sustainable ways of agricultural production as a prerequisite for food security in North Korea. In particular, analyzing North Korea’s weather observation data, which has hardly been considered in previous studies, we investigated how North Korea’s agriculture had been affected by various natural disasters (flood, drought, soil loss etc.) caused by unusual weather. The results show the fact that the agricultural security systems of North Korea is vulnerable to both drought and flood due to extreme precipitation changes, which are closely related to the negative impacts on North Korea’s agricultural activities. In order to enhance the sustainability of North Korea’s agriculture, it is necessary to improve the system (dissolution of collectivization), increase the amount of agricultural materials, enhance soil fertility and develop agricultural machines. Most of all, this research reveals the fact that the most important and fundamental points for food security in North Korea, it needs the systematic strategies to cope with climate change.

The objective of this study is to analyze the DEA efficiency of the environmentfriendly agricultural districts and zones. There are political inefficiency in districts and zones with 45.3% and 85.0%. It mainly results from scale efficiency than pure technical efficiency. There are 10 efficient zones, while 34 decreasing return to scale ones. Meanwhile, districts mostly have increasing return to scale with 97.9%. The results of this study is meaningful to re-construct the project based on the environment-friendly agricultural production.

This study focused on enhancing the mechanical properties and thermal stability of bio-composites with natural agricultural residues and improving the interfacial adhesion between polymer and biodegradable agricultural residual waste fibers. To achieve this purpose, we proposed superheated steam (SHS) treatment method as a novel pre-treatment of fiber for improved of compatibility in polymer matrix. The use of SHS-treatment was investigated as a method for improving interfacial adhesion between agricultural residual waste fibers and polymer and with the goal of enhancing mechanical properties. We selected wheat straw fibers for agricultural waste fibers to improve the surface modification. Wheat Straw Fibers (WSF) was treated with SHS in order to modify its characteristics for bio-composite applications. Treatment was conducted at temperatures 200oC and 230oC for each 1 h. SHS-treated WSF was evaluated for its chemical composition, thermal stability, morphology and crystallinity. Thermal stability of the fibers was investigated using thermogravimetric analysis and found that the degradation temperature of the fibers is increased after of the SHS treatment. In addition, SHS treatment contained in the WSF reduce the rate of hemicellulose components. The WSF is polar nature of lignocellulose due to the presence of hydroxyl and carboxyl groups in cellulose and hemicellulose causes it to be incompatible with non-polar thermoplastics. SHS-treatment was found to be able to remove hemicellulose, which is the most hydrophilic and most thermally unstable component in WSF, since it has the lowest thermal resistance. Removal of hemicellulose makes the fiber less hydrophilic and this will potentially increase the compatibility of treated WSF and polymers and improves the mechanical properties and water resistance of composites.