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Impact of agricultural production outsourcing services on carbon emissions in China

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Abstract

Increasing food output while reducing agricultural carbon emissions (ACE) is a major challenge to achieving green agriculture in China. Previously unexplored research regarding the relationship between agricultural production outsourcing services (APOS) and ACE is investigated using household microsurvey data in China and econometric methods, and the influencing mechanism is also tested empirically. The results reveal that APOS increases the total ACE and reduces ACE per unit area. The mechanism test shows that APOS are beneficial to the expansion of rice planting areas and farmers’ adoption of agricultural green production techniques. The increasing effect of rice planting area on ACE was greater than the decreasing effect of green production techniques. In the future, China should accelerate the selection and breeding of rice varieties with low carbon emissions to reduce the increase of ACE caused by large-scale land management in the process of APOS development. Policy support and subsidies should be strengthened for APOS organizations to purchase green production techniques, so as to further drive farmers to adopt green production techniques and reduce ACE. It is also necessary for China to encourage small-scale farmers to outsource their agricultural production activities to APOS organizations. The role of collective action consciousness of agricultural production in increasing the supply capacity of APOS organizations should be enhanced.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71803071 & 72273061 & 42261050). Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (No.202310421009)..

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecological Civilization, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, 330013, China

    Hua Lu, Na Duan & Qianru Chen

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  1. Hua Lu
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  2. Na Duan
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  3. Qianru Chen
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Contributions

HL had the original idea and data collecting, ND and QC carried out the analyses for the study, and the authors drafted the manuscript and the approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hua Lu.

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Lu, H., Duan, N. & Chen, Q. Impact of agricultural production outsourcing services on carbon emissions in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 35985–35995 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24771-2

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