Abstract:
To systematically analyze the structural imbalances in agricultural supply system during the transformation of traditional food concepts and to assess the evolutionary characteristics of agricultural supply capacity in recent years, this study constructs an effective supply evaluation system for agricultural products under the broader food connotation (BFC-ESESAP), integrating both quantitative and qualitative supply dimensions, and employs the entropy weight method, the principal component analysis, and the criteria importance though intercrieria correlation (CRITIC) to assess the evolution of agricultural supply capacity from 2014 to 2023. Results show that China’s comprehensive agricultural supply capacity has transitioned from a painful stage to a leap stage, with significant enhancement in effective supply. However, the transformation from the traditional food security concept to the broader food connotation remains incomplete. Specifically, the quantitative expansion of supply has been accompanied by the structural imbalances. Although the initial synergies between policy adjustments and market-driven pressures have emerged, the supply system remains entrenched in the traditional approach prioritizing staple crops over featured products, with insufficient exploitation of multi-source food resources. Despite an exponential-type recovery trajectory in supply quality, constraints persist, inlcuding insufficient endogenous drivers for green production, geographical misallocation of production factors, and workforce aging directly constraining quality enhancement. Accordingly, the study proposes three targeted recommendations: 1) building a dynamic synergy mechanism of “policy-market-technology”, 2) solving resource constraints and structural contradictions, and 3) enhancing the green transition and factor adaptability.