Does the popularization of agricultural mechanization improve energy-environment performance in China's agricultural sector?

Environmental problems caused by the rapid popularization of agricultural mechanization and the increase of energy input in China's agricultural production have caused increasing concern. Based on the study sample of China's 30 provinces from 2000 to 2017, this paper estimates the energy-environment performance of agricultural sector using the global DEA method. Furthermore, it applied a panel TOBIT model based on censored data to empirically analyze the impact of popularization of mechanization on energy-environment performance in China's agricultural sector. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, the mean value of energy-environment performance is 0.1842, and the values of national and regional performance showed a downward trend in the sample period, indicating that most regions in China's agricultural sector did not perform well in terms of energy saving and pollution control. Secondly, the development of agricultural mechanization has a significant negative effect on energy-environment performance. This result confirms the fact that the regions with high penetration rates of agricultural mechanization usually have a low energy-environment performance. Finally, in regard to the control variables, energy price, reservoir infrastructure construction and agricultural industrial structure negatively affect energy-environment performance, while the agricultural labor force and agricultural mechanization service organizations have a positive effect on China's energy-environment performance. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.