The Spatiotemporal Impact of Digital Economy on High-Quality Agricultural Development: Evidence from China
[ad_1]
3.4.1. Dependent Variable
The comprehensive assessment index system for promoting high-quality agricultural development is built upon five key development principles: creativity, collaboration, sustainability, openness, and innovation [35], as well as the viewpoints of improving quality and efficiency and integrating industries, drawing from relevant research. The system consists of five dimensions: basic development, quality improvement, integrated development, new quality development, and shared development (Table 1). Subsequently, the level of high-quality agricultural growth was assessed using the TOPSIS approach for 30 Chinese provinces between 2011 and 2021.
In terms of the basic development dimension, a solid agricultural foundation is an essential and important support. The stability, efficiency, and sustainable development of the agricultural sector cannot be achieved without the development and application of revolutionary cutting-edge technologies. With the trend of modern agricultural production being dominated by large-scale land use, modern mechanical equipment has begun to be widely utilized [36]. Therefore, this study integrates the degree of mechanization in addition to the per unit area grain yield to jointly measure the level of agricultural basic development.
In terms of the quality improvement dimension, development must consider both quality and efficiency. This dimension includes improving the living standards of rural residents and promoting agricultural innovation. Therefore, this study utilizes rural residents’ net income and the rural Engel coefficient to depict the production and living conditions of farmers. Additionally, the urban/rural income ratio and urban/rural consumption ratio are chosen to assess the urban/rural development gap [37]. The study also incorporates the agricultural industry structure adjustment index, labor productivity, and land productivity to assess agricultural innovation.
In terms of the integrated development dimension, the integration of agricultural industries is indispensable [38]. The deep integration of agriculture with industries such as ecology, culture, tourism, and elderly care represents an inevitable choice. Deep integration refers to efficient integration across various agricultural stages by widening the industrial chain, extending vertically, making the industry multifunctional, and aggregating factors based on agricultural production [39,40]. It enhances the effectiveness, sustainability, and competitiveness of agricultural production by combining the output of the primary sector, the processing and sales of the secondary industry, and the services of the tertiary sector. This study employs the ratio of the output value of the agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery service industry, the output value proportion of the agricultural product processing industry, and the added value of the tertiary industry as indicators to quantify agricultural industry integration.
In terms of the new quality development dimension, this study integrates agricultural green and sustainable development and introduces the concept of “new quality development”. The precondition for the green development of agriculture is to avoid excessive consumption of resources and environmental pollution. Hence, the study employs the per unit area of plastic film usage as a metric to assess resource consumption levels. (Agricultural plastic films require significant amounts of raw materials such as petroleum, natural gas, and water in their production processes, potentially resulting in considerable resource depletion. During the utilization phase, inadequate management practices may result in wastage and the frequent replacement of plastic films, leading to resource depletion). Additionally, the measurement of environmental pollution levels includes the assessment of fertilizer and pesticide usage per unit area. The sustainable development of agriculture emphasizes the effective management and sustainable utilization of natural resources. This approach aims to prevent the overuse and wastage of resources, thereby guaranteeing the long-term stability of resource availability. Hence, this study opts to utilize forest coverage and the effective irrigation rate as indicators to assess the degree of sustainable agricultural resource utilization.
The shared development dimension includes both domestic shared development and international shared development. For domestic agricultural shared development, local financial resources directed towards agricultural education expenditure and providing financial support to the agricultural sector are considered. The intensity of financial support for agriculture reflects the strength of national financial investment [41], and it is an important policy for supporting agricultural development, as well as a significant approach to addressing the shortage of funds for agricultural production among farmers. For international shared development, the level of agricultural foreign trade is used to reflect the influence of a country’s agriculture and its level of openness. This paper selects the proportion of total agricultural import and export trade to measure this.
[ad_2]
