농산물 표준등급화를 위한 품질지수 개발

Development of A Quality Index for Grading and Standardization of Agricultural Products

The purpose of this study is to develop an objective and consumer-oriented quality index for grading and standardization of agricultural products. To this end, we first identify attributes of agricultural products, which are regarded as important to consumer’s choice. The data for quality attributes are collected through evaluations by commission merchants at the Garak agricultural wholesale market, which accounts for the largest share of distribution of agricultural products in Korea. We chose peach and apple for application of the model. The value of each product attribute is estimated by the hedonic price analysis using auction prices as the dependent variable and the merchants’ evaluations of product quality by attribute as the explanatory variables. A quality index is then developed for each product using the estimated hedonic values. This newly developed index is called “Agricultural Produce Quality Index (APQI)” which tells us the aggregate value of attributes contained in a product in a single number. This simple but innovative index can make the agricultural grading and distribution system more efficient.