As one of the main grain-producing areas in China, urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River plays an important role in the development of agricultural production for China’s grain supply. The existing studies about agricultural production efficiency lack of regional coordination analysis at both macro and micro levels, and only few studies consider the impact of agricultural production environment pollution and other undesirable outputs. Based on the input–output index system of agricultural green production, Slacks-based model (SBM) was adopted to measure the agricultural green production efficiency of 31 prefecture level cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2008 to 2018, and the Tobit model of panel fixed effect was used to analyze the driving effect of external factors that affect the agricultural green production efficiency of urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. At the same time, the research methods at both macro and micro levels provide ideas for the research of transregional production efficiency. The results showed that: (1) the agricultural green production efficiency of urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river is relatively low, with 2009 and 2013 as the inflection points, showing a stable trend of rise and decline; (2) The green agricultural production efficiency of urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River presents the spatial distribution characteristics of “high in the west and low in the east”. The regional efficiency difference is obvious, the gap gradually expands, develops from the equilibrium to the polarization; (3) Urbanization development and government intervention has a significant restraining effect on the improvement of agricultural green production efficiency, and opening to the outside world produces a remarkable influence on the improvement of agricultural green production efficiency, however, economic development and industrial structure have little impact on the improvement of agricultural green production efficiency. Therefore, it is necessary to increase investment in technological innovation, promote agricultural transformation and upgrading, promote rational factors allocation and promote coordinated development of agriculture based on regional production differences.

The supply level of irrigation and water conservancy is related to the utilization efficiency of water resources, the production level of farmers, and the supply quality of agricultural products, especially relating to national food security and stability. Based on 1169 pieces of data collected from field surveys in three provinces of China in 2019, an evaluation system of social network relationships was constructed from five aspects: network scale, network tightness, trust and commitment, social atmosphere and sense of belonging, and social participation. These five aspects are the channels for farmers to obtain information. A binary logistic model was used to analyze the impact of the social network relationships on farmers’ participation in small water-saving irrigation and water conservancy facilities supply, and the key factors affecting farmers’ behavior were selected. The purpose of this study is to further improve the evaluation system of social network relationships and the study of the effect of social network relationships on farmers’ water-saving behaviors, enrich relevant theories and provide a feasible path for the implementation of water-saving irrigation from the macro initiative level. The results show that higher network closeness and policy satisfaction, water management experience, agricultural insurance, strong family decision-making power, etc., will reduce the likelihood of farmers participating in the supply of small water-saving irrigation and water conservancy facilities; increasing network compactness will increase the possibility of farmers’ participation in the supply; trust and commitment, social ethos and sense of belonging, social participation, and other factors have no significant influence on farmer participation behavior. It can be seen that network tightness and network scale play an important role in the behavior of farmers’ participation in public affairs. In conclusion, social network relationships will affect farmers’ participation in the supply of irrigation and water conservancy facilities, but different dimensions have different influences on it.

The improvement of overall agricultural efficiency in the city clusters along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is crucial for promoting stable regional agricultural production and ensuring food security. This study employs the SBM (slack-based measure) model with the unexpected environmental outputoutputs, including agricultural surface pollution and agricultural carbon emissions, and the SFA (stochastic frontier approach) model to investigate the overall agricultural efficiency and its influencing factors in 31 prefecture-level cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River urban agglomeration from 2008 to 2021. The research findings indicate the following: (1) Without eliminating the impact of environmental variables, the overall agricultural efficiency in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River city clusters shows a rise–fall–stability trend and limited level. The scale of production input is relatively reasonable, but there is inefficiency in the utilization of factor resources. (2) The SFA model reveals that economic development, urbanization construction, industrial structure, and government influence have significant but different impacts on agricultural production factor input. Accelerating economic development is helpful for reducing excessive inputs of agricultural capital, labor, planting area, agricultural film, and irrigation. Increasing the level of urbanization can promote the efficient allocation of planting area and effective irrigation area. The improvement of industrialization level pushes the rational input of planting area and agricultural film, but it may also lead to excessive input of agricultural capital, labor, pesticides, and effective irrigation area. Expanding government influence can restrain the excessive use of pesticides. (3) After eliminating environmental variables, there is a low and slow declining trend of the overall agricultural efficiency over time. Neither production scale efficiency nor pure technical efficiency reached optimal levels; the former one is significantly lower than the latter. In terms of spatial distribution, there exists a “higher in the west and lower in the east” feature, with obvious and expanding regional efficiency differences and high-efficiency areas gradually concentrating in the Wuhan urban circle. In summary, this article puts forward the following suggestions: optimize the structure of the government’s support for agriculture, focusing on the construction of agricultural infrastructure and the support for green production in agriculture; improve the research and development and promotion of green production technology and encourage the establishment of the use of resources and recycling; and absorb the population of farmers who have been transferred to urban areas reasonably and orderly under the adjustment of industrial structure.

Based on the field survey data, hierarchical model was used to analyze willingness and influencing factors of demand for farmland water conservancy facilities of farmers with income difference. The study shows that village characteristics, irrigation expectation deterioration and institutional environment are the main factors influencing farmers' demand. Seen from the results of the income grouping, geographical features, water fee collection rate, deterioration in expected waiting time for irrigation, deterioration in expected irrigation water price are common factors affecting farmers' demand desire for farmland water conservancy facilities, while influence of other factors differs. Farmers' characteristics and planting willingness have no effect on farmers' demand desire. With the increase of income, influencing factors of farmers' demand at the village level are gradually reduced, while those at household level are increased. Policy recommendations are presented based on the findings.