Abstract
The Agricultural Cooperatives Group of Korea has been playing a very important role in the rice distribution and sales in Korea, just like the JA Group in Japan. However the rice business of the Agricultural Cooperatives Group of Korea is different in two points from that of JA Group. First, while the rice business of the JA Group is conducted as a joint business between JA (the primary cooperative in local area) and ZenNoh (the Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations), that is, rice is sold to consumers & buyers through the ZenNoh, each of the primary cooperatives of Koreas sell the their rice respectively. Second, in case of Japan, the transaction of rice between farmers and JA Group is consignment-sale. But that of Korea is basically purchasing-sale. This paper analyzes why agricultural cooperative groups in Korea have established a different rice business system from that of the JA Group of Japan in spite of the similar organization structure of agricultural cooperatives of the two countries and the problems facing the agricultural cooperative groups of Korea.
