Korea forest service(KFS) supports to build a Forest Product Center(FPC) from 2004, and the number of FPC running or prepare for running in 2012 is 72. KFS is planning to extend the number of FPC and to increase support money from 2013. This study is designed to find a proper size and the required number of FPC to attain the object of the business. It is also supposed to suggest some management measures to revitalize FPCs. This study contains the results of consumers survey and the outlook of several important non-timber products.
In this study FPCs are divided by the handling products, and analyzed by the management outcomes. The FPC which shows the best outcomes will be the standard for the proper size of FPCs, which deals similar products. The capacity of the standard facility for each product will be the basis to estimate the number of FPCs demanded nationwide. The size of refrigerator, sorting area, and processing area for chestnuts, persimmons and jujubes are 400㎡, 330㎡, and 165㎡, respectively. In this case the facility can handle 600 tons for chestnuts, 520 tons for persimmons, and 370 tons for jujubes. The standard size of refrigerator of the FPC handling wood mushrooms(Shitake) is 330㎡, and this can process 400 tons of mushroom per year. For the dry mushroom the refrigerator size is 495㎡ and the process capacity is 35 tons. For wild greens refrigerator is 992㎡, and sorting area is 397㎡. Its dealing capacity is 280 tons. To handle 20% of total product the number of FPCs demanded is 15 for chestnut, 8 for wood mushroom, 5 for dry wood mushroom, 40 for persimmon, 5 for jujube, and 28 for wild greens.
To revitalize FPCs it is the most import job to make a group of integrated members. Many producers will provide enough products that can run the facilities year around. Well organized groups with confidence and trust will have no problem to gather products. This will solve financial problem of buying raw materials. FPCs should be managed by specialists. For stimulating FPCs to make integrated groups the government policies on forest product management need to center on FPCs. The regulation to deal only forest products needs to be removed to increase running efficiency of facilities. Since many forest products are harvested during a short period of a year, a quite big fund is needed to buy the products.
It is also need to make stronghold FPCs to increase competitiveness. Neighboring main product areas are grouped together, and the FPCs in these area with the same handling product make a stronghold FPC to strengthen the marketing competitiveness and to increase efficiency of facility utilization. There are two groups of areas for chestnut. One located in Chungcheongnamdo groups 5 FPCs, and is able to handle 3 thousand tons of chestnuts. The other one locates in lower part of peninsula, and it will also group 5 FPCs with 3,000-ton handling capacity. Wood mushroom makes only one stronghold FPC, while persimmon and wild greens make 4 and 5 stronghold FPCs, respectively. There are some cities which can be candidates for different stronghold FPCs. The best cities for three different areas will have mixed-stronghold FPCs at each place. Buyeo may have a mixed-stronghold FPC, which will handle chestnuts, wood mushrooms, and wild greens. This facility will group 14 single FPCs, and its dealing capacity is about 5,880 tons. The other two cities are Hadong and Hwasun. Mixed-stronghold FPC in Hadong will deal chestnuts and persimmons, and it will group 13 FPCs. The one in Hwasun will process persimmons and wild greens, and combine 11 FPCs. The final number of FPCs to be built is 62. There will be 54 new FPCs, 5 new stronghold FPCs, and 3 new mixed-stronghold FPC.


Researchers: Lee, Sang-Min, Song, Seong-Hwan, Bark, Ji-Eun and Kim, Young-Bae
Research period: 2012. 6. - 2012. 11.
E-mail address: smlee@krei.re.kr