Cho Jae-ho, the head of the Rural Development Administration, has called on the Gyeongbuk Specialized Crop Research Institute to focus on melon industry development, while urging Gyeongnam to concentrate on onion and garlic research, development, and commercialization. This is part of a project to improve regional agricultural competitiveness by designating and intensively cultivating regionally specialized crops. Cho also inspected the status of specialized crop cultivation at the Gyeongnam Provincial Agricultural Research and Extension Services Onion Research Center.