抄録
A large number of food industries concentrate in agricultural villages and regional cities, and food business there makes a significant contribution to both employment and economic growth in the region by its sales total. With the increasing globalization of agricultural market, in order to revitalize food industry and agriculture, it is essential for both of them to facilitate and deepen their cooperation at regional level by forming food industry cluster. Looking at the food industry cluster in view of the food system, the major challenges to the food industry cluster are to establish supply chain and value chain strategically, as well as to form vertically organized economic entities. The industrial cluster projects started by Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry in 2001 and the food industrial cluster projects introduced by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishery in 2005 tend to play a role mostly in product development for enterprises in certain fields. Cooperation between food industry and agriculture can create mutually dependent relationship regarding management resources through transfer of technology, technical know-how, and information system, and by extension can trigger technical innovation. It will take time to reach the point where information sharing between both parties and their accumulated knowledge produce the learning effect.
