A Study on Optimal Farming System for Organic Farm Products

유기농산물 생산농가의 최적영농조직

Producing organic farm products is one of the high-payoff farming practices considering the rapid increase of consumer's purchasing power. The purpose of this study is to identify the optimal organic farming system in relation to farm income. To cope with the above objectives, present farming conditions and profitability of 15 farmers producing organic products including rice and leaf vegetables as lettuse and cabbage were surveyed in Hongsung and Ahsan Gun, Chungnam Province. Based on the surveyed data, maximization of organic farm income were analyzed under the constrained conditions such as limited monthly labour inputs and competitive use of land by Linear Programming Model. The results of this study can be summarized as follows. 1. In the profitability analysis of 15 farmers producing organic products, rice farmers could earn their farm income more than that of conventional farmers by 50%. On the other hand, the controlled lettuce farmers could get more about 100% than that of it. But the controlled cabbage farm could get more about 40% of it. These organic farm products were saled at high prices comparing with the prices of conventional farm products by 170% ~ 230% even though the crop yields produced by organic materials had decreased. 2. According to the labor requirement of the organically produced crops, rice cultivation was needed more labour inputs than the conventional farming method by 130%. On the other hand lettuce and cabbage could saved labour requirement by 40% and 80% of those respectively. Especially for the rice cultivation concern, higher labor requirement was due to the activities as organic fertilization, soil preparation and pest and weed controll, etc. 3. With the surveyed data from farmers who produced farm commodities, L.P. analysis was implemented to find out the optimul farming system and the maximum income. According to the results of L.P. analysis, 58% of total farm income could get more than the conventional farming system In the case of rice cultivation, one ha of paddy was recommendable to save more labour inputs than the controlled leaf vegetables such as lettuse and cabbage. However, in the controlled leaf vegatables, only 73% of total upland equivalent to 0.3 ha should be cultivated under the condition of labor shortage as the restricted 4 workers. And increasing the size of hogs raising should be recommened to achieve self-sufficiency of organic fertilizer. As pointed out the possibility of organic farming, present farmers producing organic farm products could be able to maximize their income by expanding organic farm size with regard to all conditions of our organic industry. Of course, there are many difficulties in the course of developing organic agriculture. So Government should effort to support the development of our organic agriculture considering the various aspects of production, marketing, Quality certification of organic produces.