• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.233-246
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• 2005

This paper aims to explore the innovation milieu of red-pepper agro-industry in Bonghwa County, in the northern part of Gyeongbuk Province, and suggest policy recommendations for bringing up local agro-industry from a cluster perspective. It turns out that the capabilities of Bonghwa red-pepper agro-industry to innovate are remarkably weak let alone soft infrastructures such as learning networks between innovation agents and social capital. In this sense Bonghwa red-pepper agro-industry can be viewed as an agricultural area simply specialized in production sector rather than a kind of agro-industry cluster. For moving up Bonghwa red pepper industry into an innovative cluster, the paper suggests that the policy makers need to focus on cultivating local learning communities, building a region-wide incorporated brand, promoting the local agricultural technology centre as a network hub of cluster and fostering the functional links between universities and local innovation agents, covering farmers, agricultural organizations, agro-food producers and the local government.