축산업의 사회적 책임 이행 실태와 정책과제(2/2차년도)

Abstract

우리나라 축산업은 경제성장 과정에서 빠르게 성장하여 농업에서 중요한 경제적 위치를 차지하고 있다. 공장식 사육형태 도입에 기초한 생산성 향상과 비용 절감은 축산업의 외형적 성장에 이바지했다. 그러나 그 과정에서 환경오염과 각종 생활민원이 나타나고 축산업에 대한 부정적 인식이 증가하였다. 이는 축산업이 해결해야 하는 중요한 문제이며, 해결 여부가 축산업의 미래 지속가능성과 연결되어 있다.

이 연구는 1차연도에서 수행한 연구결과와 관련 분야 전문가의 다양한 도움을 이용하여 축산업 관련 주요 현안을 검토하고, 축산업의 사회적 책임 이행을 위한 정책과제를 정리하였다. 이 과정에서 다양한 외국의 사례와 관련 규정을 정리하고 우리나라와 비교하였다. 특히 축산업의 사회적 책임 이행은 생산자와 소비자의 인식개선 및 공동 노력이 필요하다. 이에 이 연구는 법적 규제 준수와 함께 축산물시장에서 소비자의 바람직한 구매 행동에 관한 내용도 함께 다룬다.

Research Background Korea was able to grow its livestock industry through the improvement of the productivity per unit area and the reduction of cost by adopting the industrialized raising. However, consumers perceive large-scale battery farming as the cause of frequent livestock epidemics and the threat of food safety. Environmental pollution and civil complaints caused by inappropriate manure treatment in large-scale breeding processes are the leading causes of the negative perception of the livestock industry. As such, the increasing interest in eco-friendly livestock and animal welfare has led to the demand for a fundamental change of livestock raising mode. The livestock industry's viewpoint centered on producer and production, such as “productivity” and “farmer income (profit creation)” based on the role of the food supply in the past. However, it is currently changing to responsible production and sustainability of the livestock industry and further to the ethical consumption as part of the social community. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the responsibilities and roles of the livestock industry in line with these changes. The objective of the first-year study of research was to summarize the social responsibilities of the livestock industry and examine the perception and status of social responsibility in the livestock industry. The objective of the second-year study is to identify and present the exceptional cases of social responsibility in the livestock industry and concretize the policy direction and programs needed for fulfilling social responsibility and sustainable growth of the livestock industry. Fulfilling social responsibility by the livestock industry addressed in this study is not an issue that is separate from the social responsibility of producers. It is because achieving the responsibility begins with complying with legal and ethical/moral norms by individual livestock farmers. However, considering the rapid vertical integration of the livestock industry in Korea, it is not rational to regard the sound sustainability and adoption of the appropriate production system in the livestock industry as the issue of recognizing and practicing legal and ethical responsibility by individual farmers. Therefore, the second-year study summarizes the activities of major domestic and foreign enterprises for social responsibility and sustainable livestock to emphasize the importance of fulfilling social responsibility and ensuring the sustainability of the livestock industry by the vertically integrated livestock enterprises.

Research Methodology This study summarizes the literature survey to review the foreign cases and policies related to fulfilling social responsibility by the livestock industry. We outsourced parts of studies to experts in each field. They include the research on the payment of compensation to farmers for disease control to analyze the effectiveness of livestock epidemic prevention policies, the study on livestock manure treatment to improve odor and environmental pollution in the livestock industry, and the analysis of demonstrations by the Dutch livestock farmer against the government policy in the second half of 2019 to review the foreign cases of livestock farmers’ responses to environmental regulations. The study conducted the questionnaire survey of consumers to deduce policy programs from consumers’ viewpoints to enhance fulfilling of social responsibility by the livestock industry and performed the segmentation of consumers for various livestock certification systems and the structural equation analysis for purchase preference by certification. We visited the farmers who are practicing natural livestock farming and the farmers who acquired key certificates to review the exceptional cases. This study includes various outstanding cases identified by the outsourced experts’ studies and literature survey.

Findings Section 1 reviews previous studies on social responsibilities and summarizes the definition of social responsibility and corporate social responsibility by period. Section 2 summarizes the notable cases of fulfilling social responsibility in the livestock industry and discusses the implications. The first-year study defines civic responsibility of livestock farmers as the “compliance with the laws, norms, and orders of the community, safe production of livestock products in ways that consumers can trust, and practicing the concern and consideration for the community through social contribution and voluntary services.” Livestock farmers realized the positive effects of increased income through reduced disease outbreaks and improved productivity. Gyeonggi SACOOP (Shared Agriculture Cooperative) has enabled consumers to buy livestock products by having them participate in the production process and farmers to produce safer and more eco-friendly products based on consumer confidence. The social contribution programs and voluntary services carried out by the Shared Livestock Movement can be a way to resolve conflicts between the livestock industry and community residents. The first-year study defines the economic responsibility of livestock farmers as “efficient utilization of given resources, preventing animal diseases by improving livestock raising method or thorough disease control measures, and supplying high-quality protein rationally and stably.” The exceptional cases of fulfilling economic responsibility confirmed that livestock farmers could increase productivity and minimize the loss, such as the killing of livestock animals, by preventing the spread of AI and other diseases through ICT application of livestock farms. However, it is necessary to consider governmental assistance since it is a high-cost burden for farmers to apply ICT. Moreover, better PR of government policies that are changed or newly created each year is also needed. The first-year study defines the environmental and ecological responsibility of livestock farmers as “eco-friendly production in consideration of the environment, breaking away from conventional raising to raise organic livestock, and endeavoring to prevent environmental pollution and odor caused by livestock farms or livestock manure to share the growth with local communities.” It is necessary to promote exceptional cases to other farmers and expand the pilot project for reducing odor to the full-scale project by securing the government budget to spread the fulfillment of environmental and ecological responsibility. The first-year study defines the ethical responsibility of livestock farmers as “practicing animal welfare livestock by improving the poor raising environment of the industrialized livestock.” Spreading of the fulfillment of moral responsibility requires introducing the direct payment for an animal welfare program, which has been discussed for some time, to support the certified farmers to spread the fulfillment of ethical responsibility. Also, it is necessary to improve the project execution guidelines so that the government- sponsored projects support the farms certified of animal welfare first. Section 3 summarizes the issues of social responsibility of the livestock industry. It summarizes the livestock safety management issues, such as livestock product safety management and the enhancement of safe supervision of livestock products regarding civic responsibility. Also, it reviews the changes and issues of livestock disease control measures regarding the economic burden. It examines the issues related to livestock manure treatment regarding environmental and ecological responsibility and discusses the issues related to animal welfare regarding ethical responsibility. Section 4 summarizes the current livestock policies concerning the four social responsibilities of the livestock industry defined in the first-year study and deduces the policy implications to improve the livestock industry’s fulfillment of the social obligations. Section 5 presents the policy direction for deducing the livestock industry’s fulfillment of the social responsibilities and the challenges. The critical policy direction for helping the livestock industry to fulfill the social obligations better is to utilize the sanctions and economic incentives so that the farmers comply with the law and regulation voluntarily and sincerely. For it, it should check if the livestock farmers abide by rules. First of all, it is necessary to improve the monitoring system of civic duty, environmental and ecological responsibility, and ethical responsibility, which have received a low mark in the livestock industry’s fulfillment of social responsibilities. For civic responsibility, the livestock product inspection system should be enhanced to check the compliance by livestock farmers. For the environmental and ecological responsibility related to odor and environmental pollution and the ethical responsibility related to animal welfare, it is necessary to implement the on-site monitoring system. Advancement of science and technology has led to broader applications of ICT in the agricultural and livestock industries and enabled on-site monitoring odor, environmental pollution, and livestock raising environment. As such, it is necessary to utilize technology more aggressively. For the livestock industry to fulfill its social responsibilities, it is necessary to offer the market-friendly economic incentives to encourage the farmers to practice the philosophical and ethical principles in addition to complying with laws and regulations. Eco-friendly livestock and animal welfare practices should go together with the current demand and participation of consumers as they will spread through consumers' active purchasing rather than mandatory regulation of producers.

Researchers: Woo Byungjoon, Kim Hyunjoong, Seok Junho, Kim Myungsu Research period: 2019. 1. ~ 2019. 12. E-mail address: bjwoo@krei.re.kr