Co-innovation for Agroindustry Development: A Case of Yantai Sweet Cherry Industry, China

Based on the unique geographical advantage, Yantai Sweet Cherry Industry (YSCI) has been developed rapidly in past ten years. China became the top destination for worldwide cherry export, as well as Yantai has the strongest ability for domestic sweet cherry production. However, it still faces with challenges such as: labor outmigration, small-scale farmers show little interest in technology adoption, and production capital shortage. From the value chain perspective, this paper analyzes how YSCI rise influences on regional development, and how to deal with mentioned problems under dual action between technological embeddedness and organizational innovation. The results show that (1) relying on the pathway "exploit location advantage - embed key technologies - optimize value chain", YSCI becomes the local pillar agroindustry and offers regional development. (2) Coupling technological embeddedness and organizational innovation improves economic efficiency of new agricultural management subjects. (3) Adopting key technology copes with labor outmigration stress, furthermore, taking part in advanced organization actives small-scale farmers' interest on technology and supplies the capital gap. (4) Co-innovation of technology and organization not only reduces transaction cost, but also captures extra profit, and provides new motivation for emerging agroindustry development. During this new stage, agricultural development is supposed to pay more attention on integrated co-innovation of value chain.