Research Reports
Present Situation and Issues of Mushroom Industry
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AuthorKang, Changyong
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Publication Date2005.12.01
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Original
In general, mushrooms are known as natural and functional foods. By a coincidence with social well-being fashion and characters of it, there is much growing demand for mushrooms in Korea. Total amount of mushroom's production derived from upward demand has increased 10% annually for the last 10 years. Now mushroom industry is classified as a growth-leading part that is expected to push Korean agriculture up to growing industry.
Research for mushrooms has been restricted in the area of technology including fungus and seed-bed even though mushroom industry is growing rapidly. It is not easy to find political and systemized research works related with mushrooms. Under these circumstances, this research was conducted in order to describe the situation and problems of mushroom industry. And groping several strategies for mushroom industry was studied as well.
The market size of mushroom in Korea has rapidly expanded except tiny growing rate during the last 4 years. Mushrooms are mostly consumed at the restaurant rather than at home. Mushroom industry are affected by economic situation such as income, price etc. Growth of mushroom industry have been driven by increment of farmers and expansion of cultivated area not by technological innovation. One of the features of mushrooms production is more labor-intensive than other crops. There are large differences in the quantity of labor input by regions, mushroom growers in a same region.
The price of mushroom is decreasing due to increasing of production. A problem on the price change is that the range of price fluctuation is not small, gives growers difficulties to efficient management. The income rate of mushrooms production is slightly decreasing year by year. A major reason of decreasing income rate is the increasing of production cost more than the increasing of total revenue computed by mushroom price. The level of production technology in Korea is in the lower stage than Japan, but the upper stage than China. It's easy to find the large differences in the quantity of production among mushroom producers. The extension system of technology and information is not systemized at all. The rate of self-sufficiency of fungi and seed-bed is low than expected.
For sustainable development of mushroom industry, the issues to be found out are as follows;
1)Expanding the market size is the most important issue in the mushroom industry.
2)Development and extension of mushroom production technology is also important issue.
3)To stabilize the mushroom price, improvement of distribution structure is needed.
4)The measure to promote mushroom export is needed.
Researchers: Kang Chang-Yong, Min Kyung-Taek, Kim Yean-Jung,
E-mail address: cykang@krei.re.kr
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