Coupling and coordination analysis of low-carbon agriculture in major grain-producing areas

Low-carbon agricultural production is the key to achieving green and high-quality development of agriculture. As an important grain production base in China, the main grain producing area is an important guarantee of national food security, but also the main area of China's agricultural carbon emissions, and it is of great practical significance to explore the degree of coupling and coordination between low-carbon agricultural systems to carry out the coordinated and balanced development of low-carbon agriculture in the main grain producing areas. The article uses the super-efficient SBM model to measure the agricultural carbon emission efficiency of 13 provinces in China's main grain producing areas, covering the Songhua River Basin, the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin from 2001 to 2021, and by constructing a low-carbon agricultural evaluation system of agricultural carbon emission, agricultural economic development and agricultural ecological environment, which includes the efficiency of agricultural carbon emission, and then adopts the coupling coordination model to measure the degree of coupling coordination between low-carbon agricultural systems in the main grain producing areas. and to explore the spatial and temporal patterns of the coordinated evolution of each system. The results show that: 1) the average value of agricultural carbon emission efficiency in China's main grain producing areas shows a fluctuating upward trend from 2001 to 2021, and the highest average value of agricultural carbon emission efficiency is 0.964 in 2021; the average value of agricultural carbon emission efficiency has risen sharply during the period of study, but the average value is lower than 1, which is still a certain distance away from the optimal production frontiers. In terms of provincial differences, in 2021, only Anhui and Hunan provinces in the main grain producing areas do not reach the effective state of agricultural carbon emission efficiency; Liaoning Province has the highest level of agricultural carbon emission efficiency of 1.184, Anhui Province has the lowest level of 0.522, and the average value of agricultural carbon emission efficiency is Songhua River Basin>Yellow River Basin>Yangtze River Basin, which is a significant difference in the level of agricultural carbon emission efficiency in the provinces. 2) During the period of 2001-2021, the overall coupling and coordination degree of low-carbon agricultural systems in the main food-producing areas showed a steady growth trend, and the coupling and coordination level is in the stage of coordinated development, but there is still a certain distance from high-quality coordination. Provincial differences, during the study period, the coupling degree of coordination between low-carbon agricultural systems in the provinces is between 0.60 and 0.89, showing a clear upward trend, the coupling grade has gone through the development stage of primary coordination, intermediate coordination to good coordination, but there are big differences between provinces, and the degree of coupling coordination generally shows the development trend of “high in the north and low in the south” “high in the east and low in the west”. Based on this, the following three countermeasures are proposed: firstly, strengthen inter-regional cooperation to jointly promote the development of low-carbon agriculture; secondly, implement the new concept of low-carbon production and continuously improve the low-carbon awareness of farmers; and thirdly, strengthen the agricultural science and technology innovation and continuously improve the agricultural carbon emission reduction technology.