Agricultural eco-efficiency (AEE) is a crucial indicator of the green development of agriculture. Agricultural socialized services (AS) provide services for the agricultural production process and they promote the effective input of production factors, such as science and technology, talent, information, and capital, into the agricultural production chain, deepening the division of labor and injecting vitality into agricultural development. We measured AEE based on field research data in Jiangxi Province, China. We also constructed an endogenous switching model to explore the impact of AS on AEE. Our results show that, based on the counterfactual assumption, the AEE increased by 13.19% among farmers who adopted the services compared to those who did not. From the perspective of scale and structural differences, the larger the scale of agricultural cultivation, the stronger the impact of AS on AEE. Furthermore, a large share of cash crops was found to inhibit the impact of AS on AEE. We also investigated whether farmers in close proximity to each other affect their neighbors through knowledge dissemination and technology spillover. The extent of the impact of AS on AEE depended on distance thresholds: it was more pronounced when we increased the distance threshold. Our results suggest that the government should improve the AS system, provide more public welfare services, and appropriately subsidize AS organizations. The AS for food crops should be emphasized; however, those for cash crops should not be ignored.

Introduction: How e-commerce businesses improve farmers' fertilizer application (FFA) and reduced fertilizer application is of great practical significance.Methods: Using the data from the China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS) in 2020, the OLS and mediating effect models were exploited to explore the impact and mechanism of e-commerce operation (EO) on FFA by examining this heterogeneous effect. We further explored the differences in fertilizer reduction effects of different EO's scales and modes.Results and discussion: The results show that e-commerce operation significantly negatively impacts farmers ' chemical fertilizer (CF), reducing CF's amount. The results of the mediating effect test show that agricultural machinery service plays an intermediary role in the influence of EO on FFA. The heterogeneity analysis shows that e-commerce operation has a heterogeneous impact on FFA regarding gender, agricultural functional zoning, and regional distribution. E-commerce operations can encourage women, major grain-producing areas, and farmers in the central and western regions to reduce fertilizer. Further discussion indicates that scale e-commerce and social e-commerce also perform the fertilizer reduction effect. Therefore, policy makers are suggested to encourage the transformation of rural industries into e-commerce to stimulate the production sector to reduce fertilizer use. These measures help developing countries balance economic growth and environmental protection, and promote sustainable ecological development.

A series of revitalization policies (RPs) have been implemented in China’s Old Revolutionary Areas (ORAs). Evaluating the impact of these RPs is of paramount importance for refining policy design and achieving the goal of common prosperity. This study focuses on the ORAs in Gannan (ORAG) and employs the Propensity Score Matching Difference-in-Differences (PSM-DID) method to assess the effects of the RPs from two perspectives: stimulating economic growth and increasing farmers’ income, utilizing county-level data spanning from 2006 to 2019. The findings of this study reveal that while the RP restrains the growth of per capita GDP in ORAG, it significantly promotes the growth of farmers’ income. Moreover, it plays a crucial role in reducing the income gap between ORAG and Jiangxi Province, thus promoting the common prosperity of farmers in ORAG. A detailed examination using quantile regression shows that the RP has a significant and consistent negative impact on GDP per capita GDP at different quantile points. At the same time, it has a significant positive effect on increasing farmers’ income at the 25% quantile point, effectively reducing income inequality among farmers at all quantile levels. The mechanism analysis shows that the RP has stimulated increased government investment in ORAG, leading to an increase in farmers’ incomes and a reduction in income disparities. However, the study also highlights the existence of a “policy trap” that has hindered the RP’s effectiveness in ORAG. Drawing upon these findings, this paper offers policy recommendations to enhance the impact of RP in ORAs.