China's agricultural ecological efficiency and spatial spillover effect

The agriculture sector is the most important sector for the rural and urban population, because it is the basic supporting sector for industry and development of the national economy of developing countries. More agricultural crop productivity through intensive agriculture chemical, by ignoring the negative impact on the environment create some adverse effects like water pollution, soil erosion, fish die-off, and biodiversity reduction. So, agriculture's ecological efficiency has become the most important point for research. The study aimed to measure the agricultural eco-efficiency of China. The study has been based on the perspective of eco-civilization construction, agricultural nonpoint source pollution emissions, and carbon emissions into the unexpected output indicators of agricultural eco-efficiency. The unexpected output super-SBM model and spatial Durbin model have been used for empirical results. The data have been collected from China's statistical yearbook and the data collection time span has 1998 to 2018. The unexpected output super-SBM model and spatial Durbin model calculated the value of agricultural eco-efficiency and analyzed the dynamic changes of agricultural eco-efficiency in two dimensions (the time change and province difference). In addition, the spatial spillover effect of agricultural eco-efficiency has been analyzed by the spatial panel econometrical model. The results showed that the average value of agricultural eco-efficiency in China from 1998 to 2018 has 0.665. The highest difference has been 0.475. The results also show that the negative correlation had a weakening trend, while the positive correlation had a strengthening trend. The trend has been reflected in the agricultural ecological efficiency of neighboring provinces. The results of the spatial analysis for agricultural eco-efficiency in China show that the spatial correlation of China is significant. The study concluded that the overall efficiency has been not high, but in a fluctuation, the trend of slow rise indicates that China's agricultural eco-efficiency has enough room for progress and development potential. Outside the provinces, other provinces need to optimize the input and output to improve the eco-efficiency value. So, the study recommended that from the perspective of resource input, too much resource input will reduce agricultural ecological efficiency. How to use the least input, especially natural resources (land and water) to obtain the greatest economic benefits, is one of the ways to improve agricultural ecological efficiency.

Automated summary

The agricultural sector is crucial for both rural and urban populations in developing countries, as it supports the industrial and economic development of the nation. However, intensive use of agricultural chemicals has led to negative environmental effects such as water pollution, soil erosion, and loss of biodiversity. This study focuses on measuring China's agricultural eco-efficiency and suggests that there is room for improvement in terms of optimizing resource input and output to enhance ecological efficiency and sustainability.