Agricultural carbon reduction effect of the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy

Urban-rural integrated development is the proper meaning of promoting the green transformation of agricultural development and promoting the construction of our country's ecological agriculture system. This paper deconstructs the theoretical logic underpinning the promotion of agricultural carbon emissions reduction through national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy. It employs methods including the difference-in-differences model, mediation effect model, and spatial Durbin model to systematically examine the impact, operational mechanisms, and spatial spillover effects of national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy on agricultural carbon emissions. The results show that: 1) The benchmark regression results indicate that the policy effectively reduces agricultural carbon emissions in the region. This conclusion remains valid after undergoing a series of robustness tests. 2) The results of heterogeneity analysis show that with the continuous increase of agricultural carbon emissions, the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy has a marginal decreasing effect on agricultural carbon emissions. From the perspective of agricultural carbon sources, the agricultural carbon emission reduction effect of the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy is mainly achieved by reducing the carbon emissions of agricultural fertilizers, agricultural plastic films, agricultural irrigation and pesticides. From the perspective of agricultural production function positioning, the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy can effectively curb agricultural carbon emissions in non-grain-producing areas. 3) Mechanism regression results show that the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy indirectly promotes agricultural carbon emission reduction by agricultural promoting land transfer and strengthening environmental regulation, while the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy improves the level of agricultural mechanization but weakens its agricultural carbon emission reduction effect. 4) The spatial effect results show that the national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy can not only effectively inhibit agricultural carbon emissions in the region, but also have a significant inhibition effect on agricultural carbon emissions in neighboring areas. Accordingly, it is proposed to actively summarise and disseminate exemplary practices from national urban-rural integration pilot zone policy, explore tailored mechanisms for leveraging policy to empower agricultural carbon reduction, and strengthen integrated development of green, low-carbon, and circular agricultural systems across regions.