The Spatio-temporal Configuration and Driving Factors of China's Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity: Transition from Resource Constraints to Technological Efficiency

Spatio-temporal Patterns and Driving Factors of China's Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity

Understanding the evolution trajectory and driving factors of China's Agricultural Green Total Factor Productivity (AGTFP) is crucial for assessing agricultural sustainable development amid increasingly severe ecological and environmental challenges. As a comprehensive indicator, AGTFP integrates economic output, factor inputs, and environmental constraints into a unified framework, providing a more holistic measure of agricultural quality and sustainability than traditional total factor productivity.

This study utilizes balanced panel data from 31 provinces in China between 2005 and 2024 to construct a super-efficient SBM-Malmquist framework to measure AGTFP. It employs geographical probing methods to examine seven dimensions influencing this productivity, including factor endowments, technological progress, rural governance, production organization, market environment, prosperity level, and ecological pressure.

The research results indicate that AGTFP exhibited a fluctuating but overall upward trajectory during the study period, accelerating growth particularly after 2018. Significant spatial differences exist: eastern provinces maintained higher productivity levels, while the central and western regions showed a gradual convergence in recent years. Deconstruction analysis reveals that technological progress is the long-term main source of growth, while improvements in technological efficiency have contributed significantly in the later stages. The driving structure shows a dynamic transformation: shifting from being dominated by ecological and factor constraints in the early stages to being driven by technological efficiency and organizational structure adjustments in the later stages.

The improvement of agricultural green total factor productivity is not only about grain yield and supply stability but is also directly related to the ecological footprint of agriculture. Despite significant achievements in food security, the intensive use of fertilizers, pesticides, and energy by agriculture has brought environmental problems such as soil degradation, water pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Non-point source pollution from agriculture has become a major source of water pollution, and agricultural carbon emissions account for a large share of non-energy sector emissions.

To achieve high-quality development, the green transformation of agriculture must accelerate the shift from a model dependent on external constraints to one driven by endogenous efficiency. This requires policymakers to focus on optimizing the structure of agricultural factor supply, incentivizing green technological progress, strengthening the effectiveness of environmental supervision, and improving the agricultural governance system, while implementing differentiated policy coordination across different stages and regions. This provides key policy guidance for the path of agricultural sustainable development.