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Reshaping Agriculture Eco-efficiency in China: From Greenhouse Gas Perspective

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are one of the core causes of climate change, and it is urgent and necessary to embed non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions into agricultural eco-efficiency accounting. Based on the panel data of China from 2000 to 2021, this paper constructs an index measurement system for agriculture embedded in undesirable outputs (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide), and builds a multi-input and multi-output measurement method for agricultural eco-efficiency including greenhouse gases, and uses the SBM-DEA model to re-modify the provincial agricultural eco-efficiency in China. From the dimensions of time and space, the pattern characteristics of China's agricultural ecological efficiency are systematically revealed. From the time dimension, the results of the study showed that the agro-ecological efficiency values measured by using carbon dioxide(AEEC), methane(AEEH), and nitrous oxide(AEEN) emissions alone as non-desired output indicators were respectively underestimated by 11.33%, 0.74%, and 9.41%, as compared to the agro-ecological efficiency values measured by using all three together as non-desired output indicators(AEEM). From the spatial dimension, the results of agro-eco-efficiency measures embedded in three greenhouse gases show that the spatial heterogeneity of agro-eco-efficiency in each province (city) is mainly manifested as follows:provinces with a mean value of 1 for provincial agro-ecological efficiency as measured by the four non-desired output indicators (AEEC, AEEH, AEEN, AEEM) are Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The region where agro-ecological efficiency is underestimated in AEEC compared to AEEM is the north-western region, with the province with the largest difference being Gansu (0.52), followed by Qinghai (0.49). In terms of the division into main grain production areas, main marketing areas and balance areas, the areas where agroecological efficiency is underestimated are mainly production and marketing balance areas, with an underestimation of 16.75 %. Based on the above findings, agroecological efficiency measurement indicators need to take into account diversified greenhouse gas emissions and explore a multi-indicator synergistic emission reduction path.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113268
Language: English
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,650
OpenAlex ID: W4408044317
FWCI: 26.1
Cites: 66
Cited by: 33
Related to: 10