Low Carbon Agricultural Productivity And Farmers’ Low Carbon Production Behavior In Xinjiang From The Perspective Of Environmental Regulation

Promoting agricultural green low-carbon cycle development is an important measure to achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that we should promote carbon reduction,pollution reduction,green expansion and growth in a coordinated manner,and promote ecological priority,economy-intensive,green and low-carbon development.On the one hand,due to the negative externalities of agricultural activities and the attributes of environmental public goods,carbon emissions are generated,and environmental regulation has become an important means to promote the low-carbon development of agriculture.On the other hand,considering that farmers are the main body of agricultural production and management,their production behavior directly affects the efficiency of low-carbon agricultural production.Therefore,it is of great significance to systematically evaluate the effect of environmental regulations on the implementation of low-carbon agricultural development and farmers’ low-carbon production behavior for further improving the policy support system for agricultural low-carbon development.The research layout of this paper is as follows: The first part is the research origin,related concepts and theoretical basis(Chapter 1 and 2),which aims to introduce the background and objective significance of this topic,domestic and foreign research results,basic ideas and possible innovation points,and to clarify the concept connotation and important theories in this paper.The second part is the general situation of agricultural environmental regulation and low-carbon agriculture development in Xinjiang(Chapter 3).This part uses policy text analysis and descriptive statistics to sort out Xinjiang’s environmental policy and low-carbon agriculture development,and explains the existing problems.The third part comprehensively measured agricultural carbon emissions,carbon sinks and low-carbon agricultural productivity in Xinjiang from the perspective of environmental regulation and analyzed their spatial-temporal evolution characteristics(Chapter 4),which laid the foundation for the following empirical analysis.Based on the above content(Chapter 5 and 6),the fourth part uses econometric model to empirically analyze low-carbon agricultural productivity and farmers’ low-carbon production behavior from the perspective of environmental regulation.The fifth part puts forward suggestions based on the conclusions and findings above(Chapter 7).The main research conclusions are as follows:(1)After more than 20 years of gradual development and evolution,Xinjiang’s agricultural environmental regulation has experienced four stages,namely the gestation stage,the germination stage,the initial stage and the development stage,and gradually formed a policy system integrating low-carbon concept,technical operation and control means.The application of environmental regulation tools has changed from single to multiple,and the policy content has gradually changed from vague to concrete.Agricultural economy and production show a good development trend,but there are some problems such as low degree of coordination among environmental policy makers,lack of balance among different types of policies,slow process of agricultural low-carbon development,restricted by various factors,and facing many uncertainties in the transition to low-carbon agriculture.(2)Agricultural carbon emissions and carbon sinks in Xinjiang show an increasing trend,and the differences between regions are obvious.In terms of intensity,the agricultural carbon emission intensity show a continuous decline while the agricultural carbon sink intensity show a fluctuating rise.The overall growth of low-carbon agricultural productivity in Xinjiang is relatively fast,which is closely relate to the evolution characteristics of environmental regulations.There are obvious "non-equilibrium" and "heterogeneity" in the regions of low-carbon agricultural productivity.The higher regions are mainly distributed in northern and eastern Xinjiang,while the lower regions are concentrated in southern Xinjiang.(3)Environmental regulation can promote low-carbon agricultural productivity in Xinjiang and every unit increase of environmental regulation increases low-carbon agricultural productivity by 8.5%.In addition,the level of economic development and mechanization promoted the growth of low-carbon agricultural productivity,while income distribution and disaster degree significantly inhibited the growth of low-carbon agricultural productivity.(4)From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,environmental regulation in northern Xinjiang,southern Xinjiang and eastern Xinjiang is significantly positive at the 5% level;Both economic development level and income distribution pass the significance test in southern and eastern Xinjiang,and the coefficient of economic development level is positive,while income distribution is negative.Agricultural mechanization has a positive impact on the three regions,and the degree of disaster has a negative impact.(5)Environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on farmers’ low-carbon production behavior,but the degree of impact is different among households.Among them,publicity and incentive environmental regulation has a promoting effect on farmers’ low-carbon production behavior,and incentive regulation has the greatest impact on farmers’ low-carbon production behavior,while restrictive environmental regulation is not significant,indicating that the dual factors of policy implementation deviation and supervision absence lead to the "relative institutional failure" of environmental regulation,which further weakens the restraint effect of environmental regulation on farmers’ production behavior.(6)Environmental regulation not only has a direct impact on farmers’ low-carbon production behaviors,but also indirectly affects them through cognition and other factors.Environmental regulation affects farmers’ low-carbon production behavior through mediating factors of technology cognition,value cognition and social trust,and the mediating effect accounts for 12.92%,17.87% and 21.74% of the total effect,respectively.In addition,individual characteristics of farmers,family resource endowment and other internal factors have a significant impact on their low-carbon production behavior.Age has an inhibitory effect on low carbon production behavior of farmers.Gender,education level,risk preference and whether to join cooperatives have a positive impact on farmers’ low-carbon production behavior.Based on the theoretical analysis and empirical results,this paper puts forward the following suggestions: strengthen the government regulation policy system to enhance the driving force of agricultural low-carbon development;Narrow the regional low-carbon development gap and comprehensively promote low-carbon agricultural productivity;We will strengthen promotion services for low-carbon technologies and guide rural households to actively adopt low-carbon technologies.