Impact and mechanism of agricultural productive services on agroecological efficiency

Agricultural productive services are soft inputs in the production process, provide a new path for realizing large-scale agricultural operation and improving agroecological efficiency by effectively introducing technology, information, and talents into agricultural production. Based on the provincial panel data in China from 2005 to 2021, this paper constructed a super-efficiency slack-based measure (SBM) model to measure the agroecological efficiency of each province. The kernel density map was drawn to analyze the temporal evolution trend of agroecological efficiency, and the differences of agroecological efficiency in different regions and provinces were compared. A two-way fixed model was used to analyze the impact and mechanism of agricultural productive services on agroecological efficiency. The mediating effect model was used to analyze the mediating role of farmland management scale, agricultural planting structure and agricultural technology extension. The results showed that from 2005 to 2021, the agroecological efficiency of the whole country and every region showed an upward trend, China’s agroecological efficiency increased from 0.388 in 2005 to 0.893 in 2021; and almost always showed the eastern region > the western region > the central region, and the major grain-sales areas > the major grina-producing areas ≈ the production-sales balance area. There were great differences in agroecological efficiency among provinces, among which Qinghai, Shanghai and Hainan Provinces, and Beijing City had always had high agroecological efficiency, while Shanxi, Anhui, Gansu, Jiangxi Provinces had low agroecological efficiency. Agricultural productivity services significantly improved the agroecological efficiency, and the results were still valid after endogeneity test and a variety of robustness tests. The estimation results of the intermediary effect showed that agricultural productive services improved the agroecological efficiency by expanding the scale of farmland management, adjusting the agricultural planting structure and promoting the promotion of agricultural technology. Compared with the eastern region, the agricultural productive services in the western region had a more obvious effect on the improvement of agroecological efficiency, while the agricultural productive services in the central region had no significant impact on the agroecological efficiency. Compared with the major grain-producing areas, the agricultural productive services in the production-sales balance areas had a more obvious effect on the improvement of agricultural ecological efficiency. Therefore, to enhance the agroecological efficiency, the agricultural production service system should be further improved: vigorously cultivate and develop specialized and diversified service entities; promote large-scale management of agricultural land, give full play to the advantages of large-scale service operation brought by agricultural production service organizations; improve the subsidy mechanism for cultivated land protection to prevent the “non-grain” conversion of cultivated land; and improve the technological innovation of agricultural machinery and equipment, accelerate the research and development and promotion of low-carbon and high-efficiency technologies.