Research Reports
Study on Methods to Promote Functions of Representative Organizations for Items
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AuthorChoi, Byungok
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Publication Date2010.09.01
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Original
This study is aimed to propose strategies proper to basic direction and individual promotion of representative organizations for 28 items, initiated by the government. To this end, needs and directions for representative organizations are presented, and current operation and possible problems of representative organizations are investigated. Through this, methods to promote functions of representative organizations for items are reviewed, after presenting efficient operation methods of representative organizations and examining diverse foreign examples.
Recently, Korea's agricultural, livestock and marine markets are facing rapidly changing environment in the distribution area. Domestic distributers, represented by large retailers, food processors and foodservices, are occupying the majority of consumer markets, with their huge capital strength, while less expensive, high quality agricultural, livestock and marine products are being imported to Korea thanks to multilateral FTA with diverse foreign countries. In this respect, it is urgent to enhance domestic products' competitiveness and discrimination.
Now, the government plans to foster representative organizations for 28 items, in order to actively cope with the changing distribution environment. Representative organizations for items, nation-wide organizations dedicated to certain items, help to address any problem related to each item. In countries, such as the US or Netherlands, diverse economic subjects of representative organizations for each item raise checkoff funds and continually conduct R&D, create markets and promote consumption, based on their wide systematization. In short, representative organizations do not compete in markets with limited economic subjects for specific items, but build a mutual cooperation system to design public services and create markets, as an advanced producers' organization.
Now, though 28 representative organizations exist in Korea, they have several operative problems, such as ⓛ insufficient legal ground on raising checkoff funds and representative organizations, ② unclear definition of relations and roles between organizations and the government, ③ inadequate human capability of representative organizations, ④ weak enforcement of decisions made by representative organizations, and ⑤ poor connections between representative organizations and substructure, requiring systematic rearrangement.
It seems to be desirable that representative organizations for each item should be formed in the order of production, distribution, processing and consumption, considering each item's characteristics, so that producers can address their own problem. In addition, those organizations should be managed in forms of demand-supply adjusting ones, export-oriented ones, enforced R&D ones, policy-developing/enforcing ones, and consumption promoting ones.
In order for efficient operation of representative organizations, the authority should be transferred to representative organizations step by step, and connections with the government should be established as well. Also, relations between the representative organizations and substructure should be clearly defined to generally operate related organizations, thereby enhancing the synergy effect. It is also necessary to raise operative efficiency of the executive office and labor force, and to seek proper methods to effectively operate representative organizations by investigating checkoff funds and operation issues in diverse foreign examples presented in this study.
In order for representative organizations to get competitive, they should be organized with strong solidarity in each area in advance, based on which, business proper to each item's characteristics should be systematically created. Representative organizations can be fostered systematically through enhanced competitiveness, if initial support system for higher business capability is established and sustainable research is conducted at the same time.
Researchers: Choi Byung-Ok, Lee Myung-Ki, Kim Dong-Hoon
E-mail address: bochoi@krei.re.kr
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