A Study on the Relationship between Organic Agriculture Activity and Cooperatives Role in Wonju - Utilizing Delphi Technique -

This study started with two questions. The first question is Why does organic agriculture want to be linked with cooperative? The second is What is the characteristics of the mutual relationship between organic agriculture and cooperative?, especially in Wonju. Up to now, there have been various kinds of discussion about cooperation between organic agricultural campaign and cooperative in Wonju. But there are few concrete data showing what role cooperative plays in the cyclical process of production -distribution-consumption of organic agriculture. Thus, we conducted a survey applying the Delphi technique to the 35 organic agricultural specialists active in Wonju. First, small-scale family farm producers established a social economic cooperative network in around 2003 to perform the activities of innovators through forming an organization. Producers moved from the stage in which they were supported one-sidedly by consumers to the stage where they could lead cooperation. Each farm organization built a vertical integration, and horizontal cooperative systems with other farm organizations. But, practical cooperative activities have remained in the doldrums. They tend to show trends deviating from the principles of organic agriculture and cooperative. Second, the relationship between producers and consumers in Wonju can be described as producer-consumer cooperative type. In Wonju, the producers organization is not a sub-contractor which simply deliver organic agricultural products to producers cooperative, but is an equal subject which creates its own value chain. The cooper-ative (cooperative organization) leads distribution and consumption of organic agricultural products and mutual communication. But, the closeness between producers and consumers has got loosened. And, it is problematic that the proportion of local food consumption in Wonju is very low. There is a very strong tendency to ride the central distribution system of producers cooperative coalition. Consequently, it is necessary for producers cooperatives in Wonju to run a local food distribution system based on the cooperative system among cooperatives.