TY - JOUR

T1 - Conventional, partially converted and environmentally friendly farming in South Korea

T2 - Profitability and factors affecting farmers' choice

AU - Lee, Saem

AU - Nguyen, Trung Thanh

AU - Poppenborg, Patrick

AU - Shin, Hio Jung

AU - Koellner, Thomas

N1 - Funding Information: This study was carried out as part of the International Research Training Group TERRECO (GRK 1565/1) funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) at the University of Bayreuth, Germany and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) at Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, South Korea. We would like to thank Joe Premier for providing English corrections.

PY - 2016/7/25

Y1 - 2016/7/25

N2 - While organic farming is well established in Europe a nd USA, it is still catching up in Asian countries. The government of South Korea has implemented environmentally friendly farming that encompasses organic farming. Despite the promotion of environmentally friendly farming, it still has a low share in South Korea and partially converted farming has emerged in some districts of South Korea. However, the partially converted farming has not yet been investigated by the government. Thus, our study implemented a financial analysis to compare the annual costs and net returns of conventional, partially converted and environmentally friendly farming in Gangwon Province. The result showed that environmentally friendly farming was more profitable with respect to farm net returns. To find out the factors affecting the adoption of environmentally friendly farming, multinomial logistic regression was implemented. The findings revealed that education and subsidy positively and significantly influenced the probability of farmers' choice on partially converted and environmentally friendly farming. Farm size had a negative and significant relationship with only environmentally friendly farming. This study will contribute to future policy establishment for sustainable agriculture as recommended by improving the quality of fertilizers, suggesting the additional investigation associated with partially converted farmers.

AB - While organic farming is well established in Europe a nd USA, it is still catching up in Asian countries. The government of South Korea has implemented environmentally friendly farming that encompasses organic farming. Despite the promotion of environmentally friendly farming, it still has a low share in South Korea and partially converted farming has emerged in some districts of South Korea. However, the partially converted farming has not yet been investigated by the government. Thus, our study implemented a financial analysis to compare the annual costs and net returns of conventional, partially converted and environmentally friendly farming in Gangwon Province. The result showed that environmentally friendly farming was more profitable with respect to farm net returns. To find out the factors affecting the adoption of environmentally friendly farming, multinomial logistic regression was implemented. The findings revealed that education and subsidy positively and significantly influenced the probability of farmers' choice on partially converted and environmentally friendly farming. Farm size had a negative and significant relationship with only environmentally friendly farming. This study will contribute to future policy establishment for sustainable agriculture as recommended by improving the quality of fertilizers, suggesting the additional investigation associated with partially converted farmers.

KW - Decision-making

KW - Economic benefits

KW - Environmentally friendly farming

KW - Partial conversion

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84983775209&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/su8080704

DO - 10.3390/su8080704

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84983775209

VL - 8

JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)

JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 8

M1 - 704

ER -