원주 농민시장 참여생산자의 특성과 배태성 효과에 관한 경험적 연구

This paper attempts to empirically assess the significance of farmers’ market as an alternative agri-food system. We have conducted a survey of participating producers of Wonju farmers’ market, which is arguably the most vital farmers’ market in Korea. We have employed the concept of embeddedness in order to investigate how economic, social, and ecological meanings of farmers’ markets are perceived and constructed by the producers. According to our analysis, both social interaction and monetary gain were important motivation for the producers to participate in the farmers’ market. Many farmers greatly appreciated the fact that they could sell small amount of farm produce. We also found out that the farmers with higher sales tended to produce organic products and to sell more variety of vegetables. Many farmers priced their products by checking what other farmers were doing, while organic farmers tended to refer to general market price in deciding at what price they would sell their farm products. Our research confirmed that farmers’ market participating producers did have diverse interaction with the consumers. The farmers with larger sales were more active in social interaction with the consumers. This may imply that the size did not really have negative impact on social interaction between producers and consumers in farmers’ market context. In regard to ecological embeddedness, we found some positive results. Some farmers have changed to environment friendly farming, come to use less pesticides, and diversified their farm products. Yet, the participation in the farmers’ market did not lead to a more cooperative production practices among the farmers leaving the individualized farm production activities intact.