This study focuses on the three topics: gender different division of labor in the production of environment-friendly agricultural products; the gender relationship in the distribution; gender's role in the consumption. Based on Jinju and Milayang, it ...
This study focuses on the three topics: gender different division of labor in the production of environment-friendly agricultural products; the gender relationship in the distribution; gender's role in the consumption. Based on Jinju and Milayang, it has done a survey and in-depth interview during the first and second year, compared and analysed the labor and distribution's problems of the agricultural products with Right Farming Association(RFA) in these areas. During the third year, it compared coop members in Korea with the one in Japan.
In the aspect of gender division of labor, the gender division of labor in Jinju and Milyang area tends to increase. In addition, a remarkable example is that this area's agricultural harvest and sorting process were conducted by subcontracting. This labor division pursues the efficiency and can be directly related to income. On the other hand, RFA shows that the gender boundry is weak or does not appear at all and emphasises on a sense of education over techinical education.
As for the gender relationship in the distribution process, the difference between Jinju, Milyang and RFA was noticeable. In RFA, the participation of woman is remarkable in general and people in this area shared a knowledge and information through the networking such as regular meeting, workshop for women. The knowledge and information they shared were very helpful for the revitalization of exchange such as added-value of the products and direct-marketing. On the other hand, the female farmers in these areas appear to concentrate on production labor over management, which is typical aspect of Korea agriculture. The female members of Right Farming Association(RFA) share various knowledge and information through the network, while there is no exchange happening in Jinju and Milanyang except for a few number of the farms.
In order to understand the gender relationship in terms of the eco-friendly agricultural products' consumption, the comparison and analysis for the coop members between Korea and Japan has been made. In Korea's case study, there are hansalim-Pusan and Pusan coop, while the Toshiseikatsu coop is the example of Japan's case. The main themes of this survey are the motive for being a member, the satisfaction for the goods, the satisfaction for coop, the paticipation of coop activity, and the alternative consuming patterns etc. The results are that the alternative consuming patterns are much higher in hansalim-Pusan than the ones in Pusan coop and Toshiseikatsu coop. In short, people in hansalim-Pusan tends to give thanks directly to food producers, do not use the chemical condiments while cooking, and put more emphasis on buying good food rather than buying expensive clothes or cosmetics. In addition, they do purchase eco-friendly goods first while shopping and do not use disposable goods at home because of its convenience.
Hansalim-Pusan communicates with producers and seeks the philosophy of symbiotic relationships. This feature can be confirmed in terms of the vivid communication between hansalim-Pusan and the producers. In general, hansalim-Pusan has a high alternative consuming pattern and exchange rate with producers.
The results of the study show that the role of woman is important when it comes to all the process of production, distribution, and consumption of the environment-friendly agricultural products. In particular, the increase of woman's participation through a little or no gender difference in labor and the active intervention in the distribution system through the management paticipation must be considered. Finally through the woman network, it is necessary to treat the education for the consciousness, the understanding producers and exchange, and the education for the consumers.