Rural living environment improvement is a key measure for enhancing farmers' living conditions, it is of great significance for building livable, suitable-for-work and beautiful villages and advancing the all-round revitalization of rural areas. Based on panel data of 14 cities (prefectures) in Gansu Province from 2015 to 2024, this paper constructed an evaluation index system for rural living environment improvement level in Gansu Province. By adopting the entropy-weight TOPSIS method, Global Moran's I index, and two-way fixed-effects model, this study analyzed the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of rural living environment improvement level in Gansu Province. The results showed that: the overall level of rural living environment improvement level in Gansu Province kept rising from 2015 to 2024, with a temporal evolution pattern of slow growth followed by accelerated growth. In terms of spatial pattern, the comprehensive improvement level of the five major regions ranked in the following order, namely the Hexi Region, Central Region, Longdong Region, Longdongnan Region and Ethnic Region. The Global Moran's I index indicated that rural living environment improvement level in Gansu Province presented significant positive spatial correlation and agglomeration characteristics, with agglomeration intensity changing in stages. The two-way fixed-effects regression results revealed that urbanization rate, rural education level, regional fiscal expenditure level, and rural economic development level were major driving factors of rural living environment improvement level, while rural population density and urban-rural development disparity acted as primary restraining factors, and the level of regional fiscal decentralization had no significant impact from 2015 to 2024. The regional heterogeneity results suggested that, compared with the Central Region, urbanization rate exerted restraining effects on the Longdong, Longdongnan and Ethnic Regions. Rural education level produced a stronger promoting effect on the Ethnic Region. Urban-rural development disparity only constrained the Hexi Region. Regional fiscal expenditure significantly promoted the Ethnic Region, but showed significant inhibitory effects in the Hexi Region. Rural economic development level significantly promoted the Hexi Region, but its driving effect on the Ethnic Region was insufficient. Fiscal decentralization showed no obvious differences across regions of Gansu Province. Accordingly, this paper puts forward targeted suggestions, including implementing differentiated governance paths for rural living environment improvement in different regions, optimizing fiscal support and fund allocation mechanisms, strengthening urban-rural factor linkage and industrial support, and establishing a regional multi-agent collaborative governance pattern. It is expected to provide references for targeted policy-making and path optimization of rural living environment improvement in Gansu Province.
China's agriculture has been confronted with challenges, including fragmented small-scale peasant household operations and an imbalanced rural labor structure for a long time. Developing appropriately-scaled agricultural operations and advancing high-quality agricultural development serve as crucial underpinnings for safeguarding national food security and realizing comprehensive rural revitalization. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities (directly under the central government) in China (excluding Xizang Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Regions) from 2005 to 2023, this paper constructed a comprehensive evaluation index system for high-quality agricultural development. It employed the continuous difference-in-differences (DID) model to examine the impact of land transfer on high-quality agricultural development and its influencing mechanisms, and conducted mediation effect tests and heterogeneity analysis. The empirical results revealed that: land transfer exerted a significant promotion effect on high-quality agricultural development, and this finding passed a series of robustness tests. Mediation effect tests demonstrated that land transfer promoted high-quality agricultural development through three channels, it's driving agricultural technological progress, improving the efficiency of agricultural production factors, and upgrading the agricultural industrial structure, respectively. Heterogeneity analysis indicated that land transfer exerted a significant promotion effect on high-quality agricultural development in eastern regions, western regions, and regions with high educational attainment. Effective empowerment could be achieved in both regions with low and high levels of agricultural socialized services, while the promotion effect was more prominent in the latter. Quantile regression results showed positive effects across regions at all development levels; the effect intensity presented an inverted-U pattern, rising first and then falling. Regions at the medium-to-high development level showed the strongest effect, the marginal effects diminished in high-level regions, and the promotion effect was relatively limited in low-level regions. Accordingly, this paper puts forward policy suggestions: improving the supporting system for land transfer to consolidate the institutional foundation of high-quality agricultural development; strengthening supporting measures to activate the transmission path of "technology-factor-industry"; and implementing differentiated regional policies to precisely match resource endowments and development demands. The above measures are expected to further boost high-quality agricultural development, and accelerate the process of agricultural modernization.
Electronic commerce provides a new pathway for promoting agricultural green transformation and advancing high-quality agricultural development. Using panel data from 132 county-level administrative region (excluding Shinan District, Shibei District, Laiwu District, and Gangcheng District) in Shandong Province from 2011 to 2023, this study constructed an evaluation index system for agricultural green transformation, taking the "comprehensive demonstration of electronic commerce entering rural areas" project as a quasi-natural experiment, employed a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) model to examine the impact and mechanisms of the electronic commerce on agricultural green transformation, and conducted a heterogeneity test. The results indicated that: the implementation of electronic commerce significantly promoted agricultural green transformation, and this finding passed a series of robustness tests. The mediation analysis showed that electronic commerce promoted agricultural green transformation by improving agricultural production benefits and strengthening government support. Heterogeneity analysis revealed that the positive effect of electronic commerce was significantly stronger in regions without Taobao villages, regions with lower levels of economic development, and regions with smaller planting scales. On this basis, this paper proposes suggestions including improving the e-commerce support system to consolidate the foundation of agricultural green development, leveraging the empowerment of the e-commerce market to boost the benefits of agricultural green production benefits, and precisely allocating policy resources to enhance policy implementation efficiency, so as to fully exploit the role of e-commerce in advancing agricultural green transformation.
Socialized services for grassland animal husbandry serve is the foundation for the sustainable development of pastoral industries, and constitute a critical factor affecting pastoral households′ livelihood resilience. Based on survey data of 229 pastoral households from four typical animal husbandry banners in Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, this paper constructed an evaluation index system for pastoral households' livelihood resilience. Using OLS benchmark regression model and Tobit model, it systematically analyzed the impacts of socialized services for grassland animal husbandry on pastoral households' livelihood resilience from service coverage and service sustainability. Heterogeneity analysis was further carried out according to the off-farm employment level of pastoral households. The results showed that: socialized services for grassland animal husbandry exerted a significant promotion effect on pastoral households' livelihood resilience; as demonstrated by the significant enhancement of pastoral households' livelihood resilience through service coverage and service sustainability, and this finding passed endogeneity tests and robustness tests. In terms of control variables, household wage income, grass-livestock balance subsidies, transportation expenses, and forage input all imposed significant positive effects on pastoral households' livelihood resilience, while household head gender had a significant negative effect. Heterogeneity analysis indicated that service sustainability generated significant positive impacts on livelihood resilience in the low off-farm employment group, whereas both service coverage and service sustainability showed significant positive effects in the high off-farm employment group. Accordingly, three countermeasures are put forward: breaking cognitive barriers to stimulate pastoral households' demand for socialized services, improving the supply mechanism of socialized services in pastoral areas, and implementing differentiated targeted supply of socialized services, so as to continuously strengthen pastoral households' livelihood resilience, and facilitate the high-quality development of grassland animal husbandry.
Clarifying the temporal evolution patterns and spatial distribution characteristics of China's agricultural green transformation, as well as identifying the key influencing factors of agricultural green transformation and their heterogeneity effects, have significant practical significance for government departments to efficiently carry out agricultural green transformation work. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities (directly under the central government) in China (excluding Xizang Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Regions) from 2013 to 2024, this paper constructed an evaluation index system for the level of agricultural green transformation in China. It employed SBM-GML model to measure the level of agricultural green transformation in China, and utilized the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method and Kernel density estimation to comprehensively analyze the regional differences and dynamic evolution characteristics of agricultural green transformation in China. Finally, a two-way fixed-effect panel quantile regression model was constructed to systematically test the heterogeneity characteristics of each influencing factor at different levels of agricultural green transformation. The research showed that: the level of agricultural green transformation in China had been increasing year by year from 2013 to 2024. From the perspective of the overall regional level, the regional agricultural green transformation level in China was not balanced, and the overall spatial distribution pattern was western > northeast > east > central, and the grain production balance area > grain main sales area > grain main production area. From the perspective of regional differences, the absolute differences in agricultural green transformation in China and its sub-regions were gradually expanding, and the overall differences in agricultural green transformation in China mainly came from the differences in transvariation density. From the perspective of influencing factors, green technological progress was the main driving factor of agricultural green transformation, and the effect of green technological efficiency on agricultural green transformation was limited; agricultural production services, agricultural technological innovation, agricultural land scale operation, agricultural industrial agglomeration, and urbanization level exhibited obvious quantile heterogeneity characteristics in the level of agricultural green transformation in China. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen multi-dimensional collaboration, promote agricultural green transformation to shift from "single-wheel drive" to "systemic effort"; to base on regional differences, implement classified policies and cross-regional linkage for agricultural green transformation; and to grasp the heterogeneity effect, implement precise intervention at different quantile points for agricultural green transformation.
Agricultural green development is an inevitable choice for promoting high-quality agricultural development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area and consolidating the ecological barrier in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Based on the panel data of 38 counties (districts) in Chongqing from 2013 to 2024, this paper constructed an evaluation system for agricultural green development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area under the "environment-economy-society" framework. By adopting the Markov chain, symbiosis degree model, and obstacle degree model, this paper explored the dynamic evolution law, internal symbiotic relationships, and major obstacle factors of agricultural green development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. The results showed that: as measured by the CRITIC-vertical and horizontal scatter degree combined weighting method, the overall coordination of agricultural green development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area from 2013 to 2024 was poor, with multiple inconsistencies, including unbalanced subsystems, prominent spatial gradient differences among counties (districts), and internal structural dislocation within counties (districts). The Markov chain analysis results indicated that there was significant path dependence and state locking effect in agricultural green development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, and regional development was dominated by progressive optimization with a low probability of cross-level transition. It presented remarkable spatial spillover effects and neighborhood convergence, forming spatial differentiation patterns of contiguous low-level locking and agglomeration spillover of high-level counties. Calculated by the symbiosis degree model, the overall symbiosis degree of agricultural green development showed a fluctuating upward trend with prominent hierarchical differences among the three subsystems and between each subsystem, and the symbiosis patterns of counties (districts) were relatively solidified with obvious spatial differentiation. According to the obstacle degree model, fiscal expenditure ratio, service specialization ratio and cultivated-land output value ratio constituted the main obstacle factors, and these factors exhibited significant spatial heterogeneity. Accordingly, suggestions are put forward to improve the service support system, strengthen the regional linkage mechanism, and implement zoned and classified governance, so as to provide decision-making reference for the high-quality agricultural green development in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area.
