Does agricultural productive service promote agro-ecological efficiency? Evidence from China

Given the background of the rural population ageing, the reduced agricultural non-point source pollution and the decreased agricultural carbon emission, agricultural producer services, as an important bridge between small farmers and modern agriculture, are an important path to ensure food security and the green development of agriculture. Based on panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2020, this paper uses Slack-based measure model with undesirable outputs (SBM-undesirable model)to calculate the agricultural ecological efficiency of 31 provinces. Furthermore, the two-stage least squares, the panel threshold model and the spatial Durbin model are used to empirically analyze the influence mechanism and the spatial spillover effect of agricultural productive services on agricultural ecological efficiency. The results show that agricultural producer services have a significant non-linear impact on agricultural ecological efficiency. Rural residents' income and per capita cultivated land area can adjust the relationship between them. The two main ways for agricultural productive services to improve agricultural ecological efficiency are as follows: reducing undesirable outputs such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers and plastic sheeting for agricultural use and improving agricultural production efficiency. In addition, agricultural producer services have a significant positive spatial spillover effect on agricultural ecological efficiency, and the indirect impact elasticity of spatial spillover is higher than the direct impact elasticity. Therefore, to achieve food security and promote the sustainable development of agriculture, it is necessary to vigorously develop agricultural productive ser-vices through multiparty cooperation.