Research on the spatial effect of agricultural social service on grain green total factor productivity in provincial areas

The development of agricultural social service is an important part of realizing the green transformation of grain production, and it is an inevitable choice to strengthen the foundation of grain security under the new situation. In this paper, we used the super-efficient Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model and the Global Malmquist-Luenberger total factor production index to measure the grain green total factor productivity (GTFP) of 30 provinces in China from 2003 to 2022, and constructed a dynamic spatial Durbin model to examine the spatial impacts of agricultural socialization services on the grain GTFP and its regional heterogeneity. The study shows that: 1) From 2003 to 2022, China's provincial grain GTFP shows a continuous upward trend and a spatial pattern of “high in the east and low in the central and western parts of the country”; 2) China's grain GTFP and the development level of agricultural socialization services both have obvious positive spatial correlation; 3) In the short term, the development of agricultural socialization services not only enhances the grain GTFP in the region, but also shows a significant positive spatial spillover effect. 4) The impact effect of agricultural socialization services is characterized by spatial heterogeneity, which is remarkable in the central and eastern areas but not in the western areas. 5) The promotional effect of agricultural socialization services is unstable. In the long run, the development of agricultural socialized services in the eastern region reduces the grain GTFP and shows a negative spatial spillover effect. For this reason, China should steadily advance the high-quality development of agricultural socialized services and implement a region-specific strategy to enhance its agricultural socialized services, and consider the long-term development of agricultural socialized services in an integrated manner, so as to effectively promote the sustainable development of grain ecology.