Agricultural mechanization is an important factor to improve the green total factor productivity of the planting industry, which is the key way to realize the sustainable development and high-quality development of agriculture. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2001 to 2019, this paper uses the stochastic frontier analysis method of the output-oriented distance function to measure the green total factor productivity of China’s planting industry based on net carbon sinks, and empirically studies the impact of agricultural mechanization on the green total factor productivity in China’s planting industry. The main findings of this paper are as follows: (1) Agricultural mechanization can promote the planting green total factor productivity significantly, and this basic conclusion is still robust after using instrumental variables and sub sample regression. (2) The path of agricultural mechanization on planting green total factor productivity is mainly reflected in technology progress and spatial spillover, while the mechanisms of operation scale expansion, factor allocation optimization and technical efficiency change are not significant. (3) With the improvement in the mechanization level, the promotion effect of mechanization on planting GTFP will become clearer. Given these findings, the paper adds considerable value to the empirical literature and provides various policy and practical implications.

Scientific evaluation of crop water use efficiency is of great significance for ascertaining water-saving potential and realizing efficient utilization of water resources. In this paper, we calculated the water footprint of crop growth, pollution water footprint and production water footprint of 14 cities in Liaoning Province, China, by using the water footprint theory, established the crop water use efficiency model of stochastic frontier distance function, and analyzed the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of crop water use efficiency (WUE), ecological WUE and production WUE. Results show that: (1) the average water footprint of crop growth was 1.714 × 10⁹ m³, the ecological water footprint of crop was 6.26 × 10⁸ m³, and the water footprint of crop production was 2.34 × 10⁹ m³ from 2001 to 2017 for the whole province. (2) the WUE of crop growth was 0.821, the crop ecological WUE was 0.845 and crop production was 0.865, respectively. We concluded that Liaoning province can save 17.9% of crop consumption water, equivalent to 8.38 × 10⁸ m³, 15.5% of ecological water, equivalent to 7.25 × 10⁸ m³ and 13.5% of production water, equivalent to 6.32 × 10⁸ m³ by strengthening the popularization of agricultural high-efficiency water use technology and improving the level of policy management. This research provides a basic support for the evaluation of crop water-saving potential with the stochastic frontier approach in other regions.

The support of external organizational forces is essential for the promotion of agricultural ecological efficiency to improve agricultural green development and boost China’s prosperity in agriculture. To identify the different impact of different organizational support on improving farmers’ agricultural ecological efficiency and investigate the mechanism by which organizational support affects agricultural ecological efficiency, this study explores the internal logic of farmers’ promotion of agricultural ecological efficiency and empirically examines the impact of organizational support and knowledge distance on agricultural ecological efficiency using 1011 household-level survey data from Henan province in China. The study shows the following: (1) Enhancing organizational support can significantly promote agricultural ecological efficiency, and the effect of organizational support in descending order is agricultural material distributors, peasant cooperatives, village committees, agricultural technology service centers, and agricultural associations. (2) Knowledge distance partially mediates the influence of organizational support on agricultural ecological efficiency. The mediating mechanism of spatial distance is the most significant, followed by content distance and cognitive distance. (3) Market-oriented organizations play a stronger role in incremental support, and government organizations play a stronger role in radical support. This study adds considerable value to the empirical literature and provides precise guidance for improving agricultural ecological efficiency.

Accurately assessing ecological efficiency and illustrating its impact mechanism can facilitate the construction of an environmentally friendly forest park management system. In this study, we took 28 national forest parks in Liaoning from 2008 to 2017 as study objects, constructed an ecological efficiency framework with a stochastic cost function, and analyzed empirically how investment structures affect the efficiency of forest parks and their mechanism. We found that, firstly, the improvement potential of the ecological efficiency of forest parks in Liaoning was 48%. Secondly, there was a large gap in the ecological efficiency among forests, but it was decreasing over time. Thirdly, investment structure had a significant impact on the ecological efficiency of forest parks. The increase in the proportion of private capital decreased the ecological efficiency, with the marginal contribution ratio being 10.6%. Fourthly, the business category played a mediating role between the investment structure and ecological efficiency of forest parks. Investment structures negatively affected ecological efficiency by increasing the proportion of accommodation and amusement. Lastly, there was heterogeneity in how investment structures affected the ecological efficiency of forest parks, with high-class forest parks through accommodation and low-class forest parks through amusement activities.

Organizational support is an important external force for enhancing agricultural green total factor productivity. To identify the interactive and heterogeneous effects of organizational support on agricultural green total factor productivity and investigate the mechanism of knowledge distance, using step-by-step regression method, moderating effect model, grouped regression, and recursive model for mediating effect test, this study theoretically explores and empirically verifies the effect of organizational support and knowledge distance on farmers’ promotion of agricultural green total factor productivity. The results show that: (1) strengthening organizational support can improve agricultural green total factor productivity, and a substitutive interaction exists between market-oriented organizations and government organizations. (2) Market-oriented organizations are more effective when farmers receive incremental knowledge, whereas government organizations become more influential if farmers are provided with radical knowledge. (3) Organizational support improves agricultural green total factor productivity by narrowing cognitive, spatial, and content distances. The mechanism of knowledge distance differs between incremental support and radical support. For incremental support, the mechanism of spatial distance is the most obvious, while for radical support, the mechanism of content distance is the most prominent. To enhance agricultural green total factor productivity, the rural governance system should be continuously improved and the dimensions of knowledge distance need to be narrowed.