The agro-food industry is a sector in which the percentage of firms which have done innovation in the past three years is high, whereas they have a low research capacity. According to an innovation survey (1986-90) in France, 70% of agro-food firms which responded in the Community Innovation Survey (CIS), reported innovations while less than 5% of them had internal research capacities. Our paper models estimates of determinants of innovation in the agro-food industry. Based on the comparison of several French databases (annual survey on firms, on innovation, on R&D in firms, on R&D in academic labs), it explores the determinants of innovation: sources of innovation (as defined in CIS), spillovers from public research and spillovers from other firms. Since agro-food firms have a low absorptive capacity, we assume that the transfer of knowledge from public research or from large firms to agro-food firms is based on geographical proximity. The paper presents three main results: 1. Intensity of innovation (defined as radical innovation versus incremental innovation) is linked with the presence of public research in life science in the same region. 2. Spillovers form academic laboratories do exist even if firms have no absorptive capacity.