Meeting Consumer Concerns for Food Safety in South Korea: The Importance of Food Safety and Ethics in a Globalizing Market

Abstract

As the issue of food safety became one of the important public agenda, consumer concern for food safety became the general public concern. The Korea U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) completion allowing import of U.S. beef to Korea has turned into a massive public uproar and a series of demonstrations, revealing widespread concerns on the part of Korean producers and consumers about government food safety regulations and mishandling of the beef trade requirement. The mishandling of public concerns for BSE on U.S. beef import by the administrators led to a breakdown of the relationship between the public and the government and a loss of consumer confidence in Korea's food safety system. The KORUS FTA beef crisis raised the issues of government accountability and the importance of understanding moral and ethical aspects of food safety management that pose perceived risk for BSE by the Korean citizen. The aim of this paper is to address the importance of understanding consumer concerns, food ethics and of appropriate risk communication in dealing with politically and publically sensitive food safety issues. This is achieved by assessing the factors that contributed to the conflict between the Korean government and the Korean public over the KORUS FTA beef agreement.

Food safety at home: knowledge and practices of consumers

“…In fact, despite the recent introduction of careful legislation and improvement on food production and storage techniques, foodborne diseases represent significant concerns for the economic consequences of public health (Adak et al 2005; Buzby and Roberts 2009; De Giusti et al 2007; Doménech et al 2007; Faustini et al 2003; Hoffman et al 2005; Kim 2009; Meng and Doyle 1998; Meng and Doyle 2002). …”

Wireless Protesters Move Around: Informational and Coordinative Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Protest Politics

“…The goal of the beef protest was mainly to address government responsibility to protect citizen health, although the indirect influence on the redistribution system might be expected. Also, commentators stated that the demonstrations were initiated not by the bureaucratized SMOs, but were initiated, organized, and developed into the nationwide scale by a loose gathering of ordinary citizens (Hundt, 2008;Kim, 2009). The movement also accompanied a kind of lifestyle politics: Activists not only participated in street protests, but also spread knowledge about the disease and engaged in a boycott against buying meat.…”

“…Data are available at the Dataverse of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Havard University (http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu) 2. For a detailed summary, see Kim (2009) andHundt (2008).…”

(Im)mobilizing Technology: Slow Science, Food Safety, and Borders

“…In 2006 Korea and the United States agreed to resume import of deboned beef, but imports were suspended eight times in 544 A. Smart and J. Smart 2007 because of the detection of bones in the meat (Kim 2009). In negotiations of a Korean-United States Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2008, unrestricted reopening of beef imports, including animals over thirty months, was one of the conditions of the United States.…”