The Study Of The Vegetable Industry Cluster Of Shouguang

After 30 years of reform and development, our agriculture has stepped on a new development stage, and basicaly the demand for and supply of the farming products strike a balance. However, a series of new problems has arisen in the process—the generally poor quality of the farming products, unreasonable structure, overlapped regional structure, the comparatively short industry chain, the low agricutural profit and thus the low growth rate of farmers' income, etc. To solve these problems, we have to walk out of the traditional agricultural development path, and make new agricultural development strategies that adapt to the new stage according to the requirement of developing modern agriculture and modern industry. Overview the globe and we can see the competetive industries tend to have a feature of region-specific industrial cluster. At present, however, studies about industrial cluster are mainly focused on the second industry. As a result, theoretical and empirical studies in agricultural industrial cluster are rare. So, studies in this subject in our country may give us some clue to find a feasible agricultural development path. In view of this, this paper is trying to seek this feasible path by analysing and studying a successful example of agricutural cluster—vegetable industry cluster in ShouGuang, China.The layout of this paper is as follows: First, establish the agricultural industrial cluster theory, on the basis of the research results of the industrial cluster theory both domestic and overseas. Second, analyse the origin, development, status quo and existing problems of the vegetable industry cluster in Shouguang. Third, make clear the interaction between industrial cluster and technology introduction, innovation and diffusion, and analyse the effects of aggregation on county-level economic development. Finally, make proposals for further development of the vegetable industrial cluster in Shouguang, and draw the conclusion.Shouguang boasts of rich natural and historical resources, exellent infrastructure, and well-received human resources and brand, which provide unique advantages for the vegetable industry cluster. The most important part of the vegetable industry cluster in Shouguang is the aggregation of vegetable-planting areas, which has made an effect of derivative and gathering on relative industries and thus formed the complete industrial cluster. Due to the sticky effect of the vegetable industry cluster and competetive production factors, dynamic demand both from home and abroard, interaction and cooperation among firms, support from research institutions and government, technology diffusion and innovation are consciderably promoted in Shouguang.The development of vegetable industrial cluster has boosted the development of county-level economy in Shouguang, driven the agricultural structure to be adjusted, raised the competetiveness of the vegetables from Shouguang, and promoted the development a range of relative industries, which creat conditions for the growth of the local farmers' income. In addition, it has also facilitated the development of local tourism, raised the level of scale operation, the competetiveness, and innovative capability of the county economy, accelerated the process of industrilization and urbanization, strenthened the wholesales market of vegetables and the factors markets, and promoted the maturity of rural agencies and the realisation of the rural market function.While the vegetable industry cluster in Shouguang gained some fruits, several problems remain to be tackled, for instance, the lack of core competetiveness. So, further development of the vegetable cluster needs all kinds of support from effective policies and measures, such as: boosting technological progress, enhancing independent researching ability, and raising the core competetiveness of the cluster and so on.