Influence Paths and Spillover Effects of Agricultural Agglomeration on Agricultural Green Development

Abstract

Analyzing the impact of agricultural industrial agglomeration (AIG) on agricultural green development (AGD) is of a great significance to realizing the sustainable and high-quality development of agriculture. Panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2009 to 2019 were analysed. For measuring efficiency, a non-parametric DEA approach in the presence of undesirable outputs, a slack-based measure (SBM) was used. From the perspective of the spatial spillover analysis and heterogeneity analysis, Moran’s I index and the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) were used to empirically analyze the impact of AIG on AGD to alleviate conflicts between agricultural sustainable development and environmental pollution and further explore the regional heterogeneity of AIG on AGD-efficiency due to the vast territory of China. The mediation model is constructed to explore the paths of AIG affecting AGD. The results show that: (1) Chinese efficiency of AGD was raised continuously and the high efficiency was mainly located in the southeastern coastal areas. (2) AIG not only has a significant U-shaped impact on the AGD, but also has a nonlinear U-shaped spatial spillover effect in related regions, which shows that the “siphon effect” will be triggered in the early stage of AIG and the “diffusion effect” will be evoked in the later stage of AIG. (3) From the perspective of heterogeneity analysis, AIG significantly promotes the efficiency of AGD in the central region of mainland China. In the eastern region, the AIG has an inverted U-shaped effect on the efficiency of AGD from positive to negative. On the contrary, the AIG has a U-shaped impact on the efficiency of AGD from negative to positive in the western region. (4) The analysis of the mediation model plays a partial positive mediating role for AGD to persist in promoting technology innovation and increasing the speed of talent agglomeration. Accordingly, suggestions are provided to strengthen the coordination and cooperation in sustainable agricultural development among provinces, to drive the efficiency of science and technology through the scale knowledge spillover effect, and to conduct a scientific layout of agricultural industry development.