| As the share of livestock farming in China’s agriculture continues to expand,the Chinese government and society have become more concerned about the pollution problems caused by the livestock farming environment and its impact on the human living environment.In recent years,regarding the management of livestock manure,the Central Government’s No.1 document has repeatedly emphasised the need to strengthen the management of rural pollution and ecological protection,and suggested that agricultural development should be in line with ecological actions.It was found that,in line with previous correlation analyses: cows are the third largest livestock breed animal,after is beef cattle and pigs,and they produce about 200 million tonnes of manure per year,turning into the latest provider of environmental pollution for human life.The accelerated growth of livestock farming has also brought with it greater environmental pollution and weakened the overall economic benefits.An analysis of statistical data shows that,despite the current dramatic growth in the scale of dairy farming and its vast scope for development,farming practices are still backward and the regional layout is irrational and for different reasons,which is putting increasing pressure on the environmental pollution of dairy farming everywhere.At this point,environmental efficiency is an auxiliary indicator of the degree of environmental pollution caused by dairy economic activities,and lower environmental efficiency will seriously affect the sustainable development of Chinese agriculture.Following environmental Kuznets curve theory and environmental regulation theory and combining them with realistic analysis,the implementation of large-scale farming does not mean that the larger the scale,the greater the impact on the improvement of dairy production capacity.Dairy farming entities are under pressure to dispose of manure,which ultimately leads to a reduction in environmental efficiency and does not lead to an increase in the competitiveness of dairy farming.It is therefore important to explore the changes in environmental efficiency of dairy farming at different scales in order to propose solutions to the environmental pollution problems that occur during dairy farming.In view of this,this paper measures environmental efficiency based on the idea of economies of scale and incorporates the environmental Kuznets curve and environmental regulation theory,dividing the research indicators into three parts: input indicators,desired output indicators and non-desired output indicators.The SBM-Undesirable model was used to measure the environmental efficiency of dairy farms of different sizes in 28 provinces in China between 2008 and 2017,analysing the changes in environmental efficiency at different sizes and in different provinces,and using the Tobit model to analyse the effects of seven factors(dairy stock,daily cow yield levels,dairy product import share,raw milk market prices,labour remuneration,non-environmental The Tobit model was used to analyse the extent to which seven factors(dairy stock,daily cow yield,dairy product import share,market price of raw milk,labour remuneration,non-environmental awareness and environmental regulation)had an impact.The results of the study show that: the environmental efficiency of current large-scale dairy farms is generally low;the input-output structure of dairy farm farms of various sizes ought to be adjusted;and also the environmental potency of dairy farm farms varies wide across provinces.Therefore,this paper suggests that the environmental efficiency of large-scale dairy farming in China should be improved in five ways: strengthening environmental regulation,optimising the layout of milk sources,developing large-scale farming,encouraging technological innovation and strengthening policy support. |
