In general, an increase in consumer income increases interest in safe foods and increases consumption of environmental friendly foods. Meanwhile, even in Malawi, interest in safe food and environmentally friendly food has been increasing due to increase in per capita income, but research related to this has not been done yet. The purpose of this study is to estimate the value of environmentally friendly foods in Malawi consumers. For this purpose, we surveyed the consumption patterns and estimated the value of organic chicken for consumers visiting supermarkets. As a value estimation technique, Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) was used. Probit model analysis showed that price, expenditure on regular chicken, and knowledge of organic food affect the willingness to pay for organic chicken. CVM analysis shows that Malawi supermarket consumers are willing to pay MK2,514 (3.59) dollars per kilo of organic chicken, which is 25.7% higher than the average price of a regular chicken. Thus, Malawi supermarket consumers can deduce that they have a higher value for environmentally friendly food than regular food. These findings can be used in formulating policies on food safety by government officials, organic chicken meat marketing strategies by supermarket mangers, decision making to enhance organic food production by producers, in order to develop organic food industry.

Three varieties of green pepper - Chungyang pepper, Cucumber-taste pepper and Nokgwang pepper - are competing with one another in consumption due to the overlapping shipment period. The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of monthly variations of shipment quantities on the wholesale market prices. A Linear Approximated Inverse Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/IAIDS) is employed with monthly data set of three different varieties of green pepper consumption. The results show that if there is an excess supply in the market, the rate of the price decline is larger for forcing culture Chungyang pepper than other pepper varieties. On the contrary, change in supply of cucumber-taste pepper and Nokgwang pepper has little effect on the price of Chungyang pepper. The results of this study can be utilized as a basic information for enhancing the farm income and promoting agricultural policies related to the establishment of self-help funds by Chungyang pepper producer groups in Gyeongnam region.

This study probed into some characteristics of the urban household such as household income, number of the household, age distribution of the family members, their characteristics of shopping behavior such as the shopping place, types of the packaging and the characteristics of the time series, using consumer panel data of the Rural Development Administration (RDA). It further examined how the above factors affect fruit purchasing prices and then estimates the degree of the influence by each factor. The study looked at the purchase of apples, pears, tangerines, and oranges - the most favorite fruits in Korea. The results of this study can be utilized as the basic information for marketing strategies and/or for the establishment of future policy plans related to fruits consumption.

The purpose of this paper was to measure technical efficiencies and scale efficiencies of Korean seed industry by DEA method, and to identify the factors affecting the efficiencies by Tobit regression model. Survey data of 50 seed companies nationwide were applied for the analysis. The average score of overall technical efficiency for the surveyed companies in 2012 was 0.44, which is decomposed into pure technical efficiency 0.68 and scale efficiency 0.63. A majority of the seed companies exhibited at least one form of inefficiency except a few companies in optimal scale. It was also shown the most companies were operating in the stage of increasing returns to scale, which implies Korean seed companies are mainly in smaller scale than optimal. Additional results suggest that the Center for Private Seed Companies, which will be established at Gimje in 2015, plays an important role to make domestic seed companies improve their scale efficiency as well as pure technical efficiency by way of enlarging their size and co-using the high technology in the Center.

To help improve the current government practice of direct damage-compensation policies, resulting from the loss of profit, sustained by Hanwoo farmers, as a result of the recent Korea-U. S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), this research aims to examine any problems or issues caused by said policies. To accomplish this task, we have established Hanwoo-SIMO model and estimated the damage of Hanwoo farmers, one without the implementation of the FTA and another with the FTA, to compare and contrast the two. We then analyzed the efficacy of the current government policies. According to our analysis, the current direct compensation policies for the loss of profit on the part of Hanwoo farmers are insufficient. To address this problem, we recommend the government enact a new direct damagecompensation law to address the following issues. First, as the base formula of damage compensation, the government should use current price of the beef rather than the annually changing flexible price. Second, the flexible control index should remain fixed at 1.0 rate while the government prepares the adequate amount of the damage compensating direct payment resulting from the FTA. Third, the direct government compensation policy should extend beyond the current 15 years (2013-2026) as the profit loss is expected to increase after the midpoint of the FTA.