The impact of climate change and production technology heterogeneity on China's agricultural total factor productivity and production efficiency

Sustainable agricultural production efficiency is important for global food security, environmental conservation, economic development, human Health, and social equity. However, Climate change has had a significant impact on global agricultural productivity. To this end, investigating climate change's effect on agricultural production efficiency is critical for the food security of any particular country or region, and China is not distinct. Further, the influencing factor of agricultural total factor productivity (technology or technical efficiency) and regional heterogeneity in agricultural production technologies of China are worth exploring for sustainable agricultural growth. To this end, this study employed the DEA-Malmquist Productivity Index to gauge the total factor productivity change (TFPC) in 31 provinces and administrative units of China from 2000 to 2021. Additional inputs of climate factors were added to the estimation process to explore the impact of climate change on TFPC for different periods and regions. The meta-frontier analysis estimates the agriculture production technology gap among nine regions of China. Results revealed that climate factors could overestimate China's average total factor agricultural productivity over the study period. Among 8 out of 9 regions in China witnessed the diverse effects of climate factors; however, it positively impacted agricultural TFPC in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. Sichuan Basin and surrounding regions performed best, ranked top in China with an average growth rate of 22.3 % in TFPC. Decomposing the TFPC into efficiency and technological change, the study found that the influence of climate on technological change is greater than compared to efficiency change. Northeast China Plain and Sichuan Basin and surrounding regions have superior agriculture production technology with a TGR score 1. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis test proved the statistically significant difference among agricultural productivity scores estimated with and without climate factors and production technology gaps among nine regions of China.