A Survey on Farmers’ Recognition for Multiple Use Project of Paddy Field in Korea

Abstract

This study analyzed farmers’ recognition for multiple use project of paddy field in Korea. For the study, we set up several standards to choose survey regions, such as areas of food crops, self-sufficiency rate for crops and field characteristics. One hundred fifty one farmers were surveyed with questionnaires including experience with similar projects, intention for joining the project, preferred crops for the project and obstacles for joining the project. Results showed that a half of the farmers recognized similar projects while most of the farmers did not join such projects and also had no experience with upland crops except rice in paddy field. Over the half of the farmers showed positive response to the project, where the positive response increased with farmers’ recognition for need of the project and with joint participation with neighbor farmers. About a half of the farmers preferred upland crops when joining the project because of their experience with the crops and their ages. Most important obstacles for the project included labor shortage and expenses for facilities. Other obstacles included uncertainty for marketing channel of upland crops, crop loss from wild animals, decrease in price of upland crops.