Study On The Influence Of Urban-rural Spatial Integration On Agricultural Production Efficiency In Shaanxi Province

Food security has long been a "national priority" and is of paramount importance to national security,and food production has always played an important role in agricultural production.Improving the efficiency of agricultural production is not only of great importance for food security,but is also an important key to the modernisation of agriculture.The spatial integration of urban and rural areas is one of the important sub-topics of the urban-rural integration development strategy.Changes in the spatial dimensions of urban and rural areas,such as urban-rural settlement connectivity,land use structure,transport network coverage and logistics accessibility,will have different degrees of impact on the inputs and outputs of agricultural production.In the present day,how urban-rural integration and agricultural production can achieve dual development,and what are the paths through which urban-rural spatial integration affects the efficiency of agricultural production,are all questions that need to be explored in depth.This paper starts from the perspective of urban-rural spatial integration and analyses the impact of its urban-rural spatial integration on agricultural production efficiency based on municipal-scale data in Shaanxi Province,as follows:(1)Sorting out the pathways through which urban-rural spatial integration affects agricultural production efficiency.(2)The spatial integration of urban and rural areas is broken down into six dimensions: land use,transport accessibility,logistics accessibility,communication coverage,population and economic activity,and balanced income distribution.(3)Based on the DEA-Malmquist model,the agricultural productivity index was constructed from the perspective of total factor productivity in agriculture,and its temporal trends and spatial distribution characteristics were analysed;(4)Based on the perspective of spatial heterogeneity,the impact of the corresponding indicators selected from the six dimensions of urban-rural spatial integration on the regional differences in agricultural productivity was investigated in depth.The research results showed that:(1)At the provincial level,the level of urban-rural spatial integration in Shaanxi Province fluctuated in some years during the study time period,but generally showed an upward trend.The average level of urban-rural spatial integration among prefecture-level cities within each region is ranked from highest to lowest by Guanzhong region,northern Shaanxi region and southern Shaanxi region.With the exception of the Guanzhong region,the difference in the level of urban-rural spatial integration between prefecture-level cities within the other two regions is not too great,with the level of urban-rural spatial integration generally below 2%.The level of urban-rural spatial integration in Xi’an is much higher than that of other prefecture-level cities in the province.(2)Under the assumption of constant returns to scale,agricultural total factor productivity in the provincial level of Shaanxi province exhibits the time-varying characteristics of fluctuating growth over the study period,with the agricultural total factor productivity of each prefecture-level city fluctuating more in the time series,similar to the characteristics of changes at the provincial level.In most years,there are more prefecture-level cities with agricultural total factor productivity greater than one,and agricultural total factor productivity remains in a state of improvement.In most years of the study period,the agricultural TFPs of the three regions showed a synchronised pattern of high and low changes.(3)Access to transport,logistics,communication coverage and income distribution balance each have a significant impact on agricultural productivity.Among them,except for communication coverage,which has an inhibitory effect on the growth of agricultural productivity,the other three dimensions all show different degrees of promotion.By comparing the regression coefficients of each variable,the variables that have an impact on agricultural productivity are,in order of magnitude,road density,length of postal routes,total number of mobile and fixed telephone subscribers,and disposable income per rural resident.