The purpose of this study was to investigate perception of the Food Allergy Labeling System (FALS) of school foodservice in female middle school students. The subjects were 148 female middle school students in the Incheon metropolitan area. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. Only 20.9% of subjects had experience of food allergy education. There was no significant difference in food allergy knowledge by grade. The scores of perception of food allergy labeling by school foodservice were significantly higher in lower grade students (p<0.001). In all grades, highest scores were observed for ‘food allergy labeling is necessary’, whereas the lowest scores were for ‘I check the food allergy labeling’. The percentages of subjects who wanted to participate in food allergy education were significantly different (p<0.01); 73.8% in 1st grade, 50.0% in 2nd grade, and 35.7% in 3rd grade. For desired education contents to enhance perception of FALS, 57.5% of subjects answered ‘emergency management’ and 23.0% said ‘information of food allergy causing food’. Therefore, it is necessary to increase food allergy education and educate female middle school students according to grade in order to enhance perception of FALS.

We analyzed information provided by diet-related programs of comprehensive programming channels and the relationship between composition of professional panelists and quality of provided information. We selected 82 items among eight programs by MBN, JTBC, and TV chosun. All 82 items provided information about food & nutrition and health & disease, but only 32 items (39.0%) and 35 items (42.7%) provided information on food culture and food safety, respectively. Among the food ingredients, phytochemicals (81.7%) were the most frequently mentioned, and the contents of functional ingredients occupied a large part. The inappropriate information on programs were broadcast on an average of 1.2 episodes per program, and the most pointed out item was information that could confuse viewers with drugs (29.3%). Among the professional panelists, medical doctors (38.9%) and Oriental medicine doctors (16.6%) had the highest number of appearances, and professors of food & nutrition constituted only 7.1%. However, the increase in the number of appearances of professors showed a positive effect on the quality of program information. Contents focused on balanced nutrient intake and dietary culture of Korea should be increased rather than focusing on the function of each nutrient in comprehensive programming channels.

The present study was conducted on 200 food handlers employed at restaurants with open-kitchens in Seoul to evaluate their food sanitation knowledge levels and practices. A majority of participants (88%) replied that open-kitchens are more hygienic than common kitchens due to the sanitary cooking process. The correct answer rate was 94.3% for sanitation of instruments and utensils and environmental sanitation, whereas food handling sanitation (66.8%) was ranked at the bottom among food sanitation knowledge. Total scores of food sanitation knowledge were significantly influenced by education level and ages of food handlers (p<0.001). Personal hygiene knowledge level of food handlers regarding institutional food service was higher than that of food handlers at restaurants and bakeries (p<0.001). Food sanitation practices scores showed significant differences in personal hygiene (p<0.001) and environmental sanitation (p<0.05) according to certificate possession. As the result of correlation analysis between food sanitation knowledge and practices, there was no significantly positive correlation, whereas a significant positive correlation was observed between knowledge of food handling and personal hygiene practices (p<0.05). The results show need for improvement in both knowledge and practice levels of open-kitchen food handlers. Consistent and customized food sanitation education program should be developed to protect against food poisoning at open-kitchen restaurants.

This research is about visualizing data for efficient use in agriculture, by measuring the understanding of graphs according to their features. A questionnaire consisting of one graph, either a bar graph or line graph, and a question about data, was made. According to the results, the time spent answering the question did not differ between the line graph and the bar graph. However, the rate of correct answers differed: that of the bar graph was 50% and the line graph was 0%. This implies that participants answered using the bar graph more accurately regarding whether the data involved understanding the absolute value. From this result, it is clear that using proper features of graphs according to the characteristics of data improves the understanding of information. In addition, a strategy to utilize information and communication technology in agriculture effectively was discussed.

The interest in convenience food has increased over the years. Many researchers have tried to discover what factors affect the consumption of convenience food. Despite the diversity of studies, few studies emphasize a household’s income. The aim of this article is to identify the different consumption patterns between upper, middle, and lower income brackets. Generally, households with higher income consumed more convenience food or the relationship was not significant. However, many convenience foods are regarded as nutritionally unbalanced and have a lower quality. So, the hypothesis cannot be easily confirmed because there are tradeoffs not only between health, as nutrition balance and cost, but also health and convenience. Thus, there is a need to indicate the divergent attributes of buying convenience food in a distinct income group. In addition, the convenience food is subdivided into two distinct categories: convenience food as a substitution for a whole meal (unhealthy) and substitution as part of a diet (healthy). We found that higher income groups purchase healthier convenience food while lower income groups purchase unhealthier convenience food. Also there are distinct attributes that influence the consumption of healthy and unhealthy convenience food.

In several industries, including the agriculture industry, information and communication technology (ICT) expenditure has been gradually increasing. This study explores the ICT investment of Korean agricultural corporations, and examines the effect of ICT investment on their profitability using an IT portfolio framework. As the organizational capabilities and environment in which ICT is used is critical in examining its impact, the IT-savvy level is used as a moderator. An increase in ICT investment size results in a significantly positive effect on profitability in organizations with higher IT-savvy levels, whereas there is no effect in organizations with lower IT-savvy levels. This study shows the necessity of understanding the structure of ICT investments in the agriculture industry, and suggests the importance of organizational capabilities and environment in making best use of ICT.

The present study has aimed at analyzing the technical and scale efficiencies of credit utilization by the farmer-borrowers in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, India. DEA approach was followed to analyze the credit utilization efficiency and to analyze the factors influencing the credit utilization efficiency, log-linear regression analysis was attempted. DEA analysis revealed that, the number of farmers operating at CRS are more in number in marginal farms (40%) followed by other (35%) and small (17.5%) farms. Regarding the number of farmers operating at VRS, small farmers dominate the scenario with 72.5 per cent followed by other (67.5%) and marginal (42.5%) farmers. With reference to scale efficiency, marginal farmers are in majority (52.5%) followed by other (47.5%) and small (25%) farmers. At the pooled level, 26.7 per cent of the farmers are being operated at CRS, 63 per cent at VRS and 32.5 per cent of the farmers are either performed at the optimum scale or were close to the optimum scale (farms having scale efficiency values equal to or more than 0.90). Nearly 58, 15 and 28 percents of the farmers in the marginal farms category were found operating in the region of increasing, decreasing and constant returns respectively. Compared to marginal farmers category, there are less number of farmers operating at CRS both in small farmers category (15%) and other farmers category (22.5%). At the pooled level, only 5 per cent of the farmers are operating at DRS, majority of the farmers (73%) are operating at IRS and only 22 per cent of the farmers are operating at CRS indicating efficient utilization of credit. The log-linear regression model fitted to analyze the major determinants of credit utilization (technical) efficiency of farmer- borrowers revealed that, the three variables viz., cost of cultivation and family expenditure (both negatively influencing at 1% significant level) and family income (positively influencing at 1% significant level) are the major determinants of credit utilization efficiency across all the selected farmers categories and at pooled level. The analysis further indicate that, escalation in the cost of cultivation of crop enterprises in the region, rise in family expenditure and prior indebtedness of the farmers are showing adverse influence on the credit utilization efficiency of the farmer-borrowers.