| dc.description.abstract | Background of Research
With consumers’ awareness of rights and their interest in agrifood quality and safety increasing, the agrifood paradigm changed from quantitative shortage to qualitative improvement. As policy needed to expand to deal with the entire food system from farm to table, agricultural authorities were expanded to the ministry dealing with agrifood in February 2008, and agrifood was included explicitly in relevant laws.
However, consumers are evaluated not to be in a central position in agrifood policy. Consumers are anxious about agrifood, and there is a lack of a communication system to reflect various consumers’ needs. The results are also insufficient in regard to Green Diet Education promoted in 2010. MAFRA, as a ministry in charge of the people’s food, should actively respond to consumers’ rapidly increasing roles and rights. The purpose of this study is to establish goals and directions of agrifood consumer policy, understand the current situation of the major policy, and present improvement methods.
Method of Research
This study reviews laws and statistics for consumer support policy and the establishment of the policy basis among agrifood consumer policy, and excludes regulatory policies on businesses.
To understand the present situation of agrifood policy, we reviewed literature, did visiting research on organizations, held 15 meetings by theme, and published the contents of the discussions. The consumer survey was conducted by way of face-to-face interviews with 516 housewives in the capital area from November to December 2013. The expert survey of 48 people in the relevant field was conducted by email in December 2013. We also commissioned experts to review the cases of the US, Japan, and Germany.
Research Results and Implications
Agrifood consumer policy should improve consumers’ capabilities, rights, and consumption by increasing their right to information, securing the right to damage relief, and creating a food environment.
The projects of agrifood information, education, and promotion need to reestablish agents’ roles under a mid- and long-term plan, and strengthen a cooperation system among relevant agencies. The implementation system, centered around the central government and nationwide consumer groups, should change to the system that includes various local groups related to agrifood consumption and diet and is linked to consumer groups closely connected to living. The emphasis should be on the role of governance linking central administrative agencies and local governments, and the role of intermediaries between government agencies and private groups.
Agrifood damage relief has the fundamental limit in that the existing legal system does not compensate enough for agrifood damage. Food damage is mostly in a form of a small sum of money and there are many damage cases. Laws should be modified to reflect the features and the difficulty of proving causality and reaching an agreement. We suggested modifying agrifood consumer conflict resolution standards, including primary agricultural, fishery, and livestock products in the application scope of the Product Liability Act, increasing the effectiveness of the consumer group lawsuit system, and introducing class-action suits. In addition, because it is hard to identify and prove causes of agrifood accidents, it is necessary to provide the relief system and prevention education for consumers, and strengthen the government’s management and monitoring of manufacturers and distributors.
We reviewed the establishment of the basis of agrifood consumer policy using statistics and laws. Agrifood consumption statistics should include home food and eating out, and the US and Japan also survey the amount of intake and expenditure. Therefore, the existing investigation system should be supplemented. The cooperative system with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Statistics Korea is needed to expand the items investigated and release more data. To better use food statistics, it is necessary to establish an information network, promote them to users, release timely statistics, provide more secondary data, and increase reliability by approving and strengthening post management. Also, it is needed to integrate the code system for the basis of statistics production, and consider introducing an organization fully in charge of statistics and vitalizing private statistics production. The laws on agrifood consumer policy are the basis for the implementation of basic plans and consumer protection according with features of agrifood consumption. To efficiently implement agrifood consumer policy, it is necessary to modify substantial laws for agrifood consumer protection, establish a system for strengthening consumers’ capabilities, modify the implementation system, and prepare relevant provisions. We considered modifying laws from consumers’ view, enacting the tentatively named “Agrifood Consumer Policy Act” and completely revising the Diet Education Support Act, and suggested the basic contents of the Agrifood Consumer Policy Act.
Researchers: Kyei-Im Lee, Ki-Whan Park, Yun-Jae Hwang, Hyun-Jung Ban, Hyun Joung Jin
Research period: 2013. 6. ~ 2014. 2.
E-mail address: lkilki@krei.re.kr | - |
