High-standard farmland construction is an important initiative in China that promotes sustainable agricultural development and ensures food security through land consolidation. This study measures the growth of agricultural total factor productivity (ATFP) in China, which is used to characterize the sustainable development of agriculture. Using provincial panel data from China and a continuous difference-in-difference (DID) model, the study examines the impact of high-standard farmland construction policy on ATFP growth. Results show that ATFP in China has an increasing trend with an average annual growth rate of 3.6%. The average enhancement effect of high-standard farmland construction policy on ATFP is 1.0%, which remains significant after various robustness tests. The positive effect of the policy on ATFP becomes apparent in the third year of implementation and shows a gradually increasing trend. The study also finds that the impact of high-standard farmland construction on ATFP is more pronounced in the central regions of China, the main grain-producing regions, and the regions with higher ATFP. High-standard farmland construction policy enhances ATFP by promoting agricultural technology change and technical efficiency. To promote the growth of ATFP and achieve sustainable agricultural development, China should continue to promote the construction of high-standard farmland and explore suitable construction models for different regions.

Introduction: The rapid aging of the labor force has serious implications for socioeconomic development and poses challenges to food sustainability. Existing studies have focused on the impact of labor force aging on land productivity, but little attention has been paid to the comprehensive capacity of agricultural production, namely the total factor productivity of agriculture.Methods: We estimate the impact of labor force aging on total factor productivity in agriculture using data from 170,506 sample farm households from the National Fixed Point Survey data from 2003 to 2020. We estimate the results using a panel fixed effects approach and mitigate the endogeneity problem using an instrumental variables approach to ensure the robustness of the estimates.Results and discussion: The results show that labor force aging has an adverse effect on the agricultural total factor productivity of farm households and remains robust after addressing endogeneity and substituting explanatory variables. The aging effect shows significant heterogeneity across different food functional areas with different types of farm households. The negative impact of labor force aging on total factor productivity in agriculture is mainly concentrated in the main grain-production and grain-producing and marketing-balanced areas. We also find that the negative impact of labor force aging is more significant among large-scale farmers. The mechanism analysis finds that the aging of the labor force adversely affects the agricultural total factor productivity by inhibiting technological progress and reducing the efficiency of agricultural resource allocation. These insights, when considered in the light of global trends towards agricultural labor aging, suggest that policy interventions aimed at promoting technological adoption, enhancing resource allocation efficiency, and supporting the transitioning of older farmers may hold promise for maintaining food sustainability and addressing the challenges posed by an aging agricultural workforce in numerous developing nations.

Although the literature demonstrates that rural industrial integration can enhance farmers' income, foster rural development, its impact on agricultural total factor productivity (ATFP), a critical aspect of sustainable food systems remains unclear. Using provincial-level data from 2008 to 2018, this paper constructs a composite index of rural industrial integration and examines its effect, heterogeneity, and spatial spillover on ATFP growth in China. The findings indicate that the levels of rural industry integration and ATFP experienced a gradual increase from 2008 to 2018. Rural industry integration promotes ATFP growth through technical progress and improved technical efficiency. An analysis of regional heterogeneity reveals that rural industry integration has the most significant impact on ATFP promotion in the western region, followed by the central region, with the least impact in the eastern region of China. Unconditional quantile regression suggests that rural industrial integration has a more considerable impact on ATFP in regions with higher ATFP. Furthermore, the spatial Durbin model results demonstrate that rural industry integration directly supports rural industry integration development in a region while simultaneously inhibiting ATFP growth in surrounding areas. Finally, the findings also reveal that enhancing rural industrial integration can have positive impacts on sustainable agricultural production in China. These findings offer valuable insights for other developing countries aiming to promote sustainable consumption and production.

China’s agricultural development urgently needs dynamic transformation and green transformation, from a traditional extensive mode of production to a moderately intensive mode of production that meets the requirements of the new era, with efficiency improvement as the guide to promote green, low-carbon, and sustainable development. Based on the micro-data of farmers in Hunan province from 2015 to 2020, this paper uses the data envelopment analysis method to measure the cost efficiency of rapeseed production and then decompose the cost-efficiency. The Tobit model is used to analyze the influencing factors and cost-efficiency differentials. First, there is considerable room for improvement in the overall cost efficiency of Chinese rapeseed production. The technical efficiency (TE), allocation efficiency (AE), and cost efficiency (CE) of rapeseed production in the survey area are 0.869, 0.701, and 0.609, respectively. Second, allocative efficiency is an important factor affecting the improvement of cost efficiency. The expansion of farmers’ operation scales does not necessarily improve their allocative efficiency, but increases their input of chemical fertilizer and other elements, which may lead to agricultural non-point source pollution. This is not conducive to sustainable environmental development. Third, the relationship between the cost efficiency of crop production and farmers’ operation scale is of an “inverted U-type” curve. That is to say, with the expansion of farmer operation scale, cost-efficiency shows an “increasing first and decreasing later” trend peaking at (6.67,13.33) hm². Fourthly, the distinguishing factors which affect cost efficiency show obvious similarities while reserving differences. Finally, we also suggest countermeasures and suggestions from the perspective of R & D investment, industrial support, regional exchange and cooperation, reasonable input of resource factors, and awareness of agricultural green production to promote green and low-carbon development of the rapeseed industry in China.