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The coupling coordination of agricultural technology innovation with food security is of great significance for high-quality agricultural development. By identifying the coupling coordination relationship between the two systems and the influencing factors, this paper aims to promote the virtuous cycle of coordinated development between regional agriculture and technology, as well as accelerate the realisation of high-quality development of Chinese agriculture. Therefore, this paper explores the spatial and temporal coupling characteristics of the two using the entropy value method, coupling coordination degree model, and exploratory spatial data analysis, and it screens for important influencing factors using the grey correlation model. The main results show that ① the coupling coordination relationship between agricultural technology innovation and food security in China is at a dissonant stage, but the value of the coupling coordination degree increases from 0.2076 to 0.3437 during the period of study, and the level of coordination gradually improves. ② The degree of coupling coordination in the provincial space exhibits a distribution pattern of "high in the east and low in the west". The areas of high value are primarily situated in the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, and other provinces along the southeastern coast of China, while the areas of low value are mainly located in the provinces of Qinghai, Ningxia, and other provinces in inland northwest China. ③ The Moran's index of provincial coupling coordination is greater than 0, showing a certain positive correlation, and there is a significant pattern of spatial aggregation. ④ The correlation coefficients between the influencing factors and the degree of coupling coordination are all greater than 0.35, indicating a moderate or high correlation, but the significance of technological support capacity and food distribution security increased over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As skilled talent is the core element in optimizing the industrial structure, clarifying the factors that influence the lack of skilled talent in the agricultural industry is essential. The lack of skilled talent in the agricultural industry is a complex problem. The author based this study on the push–pull theory and used the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FSQCA) research method to explore the "joint effect" of the factors that affect the lack of skilled talents in the agricultural industry in 14 cities of Hunan Province. This paper found that indicators such as the rural industry status, rural medical level, agricultural and forestry financial investment, urbanization construction, regional economic development level, and local government officials were all presented under sufficient conditions. These influencing factors have a "combined effect" on the agricultural industry's lack of skilled talent. The rural industry status indicator was the core condition, appearing in all the configurations. This article's main marginal contribution is that it defined three conditional configurations for the lack of "present" agricultural skilled talents, and dependent configurations are consistent. Among the three conditional configurations, the "rural industry + economic construction and financial investment" configuration is the most powerful way to retain skilled agricultural talents. In addition, the causal relationship between the lack of "present" agricultural industry skilled talents and the lack of "absent" agricultural industry skilled talents are asymmetric. The primary task is to develop rural industries to solve the problem of the shortage of skilled talent in the agricultural industry. Additionally, then implement the 'industry+' combination policy. So the government must create related policies in the following areas: the supply of essential public services in rural areas, the economic construction of prefectures, the development of county urbanization, and the financial investment in agriculture, forestry, and water conservancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vegetation drought phenomenon will reduce the amount of water available to the vegetation system, change the ecological and hydrological cycles of plants, and affect the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem in various forms. Therefore, research on the dynamic variation and driving mechanism of vegetation drought will help us recognize and predict the response of vegetation under drought stress conditions, implement appropriate policy measures to deal with the drought crisis, and provide technical support for implementing vegetation protection and alleviating the increasing risk of vegetation drought. However, the dynamic variation of vegetation drought and its dynamic propagation mechanism are still undefined across China. In this study, the spatio-temporal evolutions and pixel-scaled trends of vegetation drought were analyzed during the period between 1999 and 2020. Additionally, the propagation features were investigated between vegetation drought and meteorological drought. Finally, the relationships between vegetation drought and atmospheric teleconnection were explicitly clarified using multivariate cross wavelet transform technology. The results highlighted five key findings: (1) the vegetation drought presented an overall decreasing trend across China in 1999–2020; (2) the most serious vegetation drought occurred in the year 2000, with the average vegetation condition index (VCI) values ranging from 0.36 to 0.46; (3) vegetation droughts were alleviating at the pixel scale for each season; (4) the propagation time from meteorological drought to vegetation drought was shorter in summer (1.26 months) and longer in winter (2.26 months); and (5) the three-factors combination of Pacific North American (PNA), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and Trans Polar Index (TPI) can satisfactorily explain the variations of vegetation drought. This study sheds new viewpoints into the identification of vegetation drought variation across China, which can also be applied in other areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmland protection is important for ensuring national food security and promoting sustainable socioeconomic development. China has a far lower amount of farmland area per capita than the global average. To improve farmland productivity, the Chinese government has implemented a basic farmland protection system (BFPS). A comprehensive and systematic analysis of the evolution mechanism of the BFPS, the failures of the BFPS and the key measures of the modern BFPS reform is lacking in the current literature. Based on a systematic review of the history of China's BFPS, this study first summarizes the evolutionary mechanism of the BFPS, then analyzes the current conflicts faced by the BFPS on this basis, proposes several main breakthrough strategies for improving the BFPS and finally provides key ideas for further strengthening the development of the BFPS in the future. The results of this study show that China's BFPS has gone through three development stages since 1963 and that there are differences in the main factors hindering the improvement in basic farmland productivity in the different stages. Correspondingly, the systems adopted to meet the demands for basic farmland protection are also different. The evolution of the BFPS is similar to a "scale" that constantly seeks balance between "system demand" and "system supply". In the present stage, the main conflicts faced by China's BFPS are between basic farmland quality and requirements for supplementary delimitation and production patterns; between basic farmland quantity, urban development and food security; and between basic farmland-use regulation and modern agriculture and the market economy. The Chinese government should further optimize the BFPS through improving the delimitation system, establishing a classified protection system and strengthening the basic farmland protection compensation system. To accelerate the establishment of a territorial spatial planning system in the future, the BFPS should also be fully integrated with the concept of an ecological civilization, be applied to resolve the contradiction between development and protection and be used to help improve the land-space-utilization control system, thus creating a unified development guide for national land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thus far, knowledge network research has been quantitative research, emphasizing that in limited industries, knowledge creation increasingly strengthens through geographical proximity or institutional connections. Although it has been suggested that knowledge networks should be researched using dynamic rather than static methods, the dynamic process of knowledge networks according to spatiotemporal changes has not been sufficiently researched. This paper uses the Chinese wine industry case to conduct related research. The results show that, first of all, wine-related knowledge creation activities were carried out in the big cities that formed the early market in the mid-2000s, and the geographical conditions in which the spatial scope was expanded were in the places that gradually developed over time. Second, although the spatial scope of knowledge creation activities is expanding with the active participation of private enterprise networks, private enterprises and the overall knowledge creation process are relatively isolated. Finally, in terms of the process of knowledge creation related to wine, in the development of regional linkages organizations relate to the knowledge providers who provide the required information, and have little to do with the geographically close knowledge providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overall goal of this study was to examine the impacts of climate change on the mean and variance of rice yields in China by using historical climate and crop data. An econometric model was established to estimate Just–Pope stochastic production functions and identify the potential impacts of climate change on the mean and variance of rice yields by type, keeping other factors constant. Based on the estimated production functions, the contribution rate of climatic factors to rice yield was then assessed by conducting the growth accounting of yields over the past 30 years. The results showed that both the mean rice yield and the yield variability were influenced by changes in the mean climate conditions and climatic variance. In the future, the impacts of climate change on rice yields will depend on local regions' present climatic conditions. The results have implications for improving the adaptation capacity of rice production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in crop breeding techniques and economic evaluation are critical to ensuring and improving crop yields and sustainable development. Based on the provincial data on food legumes breeding (FLB) in China from 2001 to 2020, the research and development (R&D) expenditure distribution, FLB contribution rate, and R&D expenditure on FLB were estimated. The economic benefits of output per unit area and R&D expenses were evaluated, and relevant policy suggestions were put forward. The study found that: (i) the R&D expenditure on FLB's showed a significant upward trend, and the development can be divided into a starting, stable, and rapid growth period. There were significant differences in R&D expenditures across eight provinces of China with relatively high R&D expenditures for FLB; (ii) the R&D expenditure on FLB had a significant lag in the improvement of per mu yield (1 mu = 0.067 hectares). For every 10,000 yuan increase in R&D funding for FLB, the yield per mu will increase by 0.145 kg/mu in the next five years, and the regional spillover effect of breeding costs is significant; and (iii) the marginal revenue of R&D expenditures FLB from 2008 to 2020 is 34.91 yuan, that is, every 1 yuan invested in breeding R&D can bring a short-term marginal revenue of 34.91 yuan and a long-term marginal revenue of 337.23 yuan. Based on the above analysis, some recommendations were proposed and discussed, including further increasing the R&D investment of FLB, strengthening industry–university–research cooperation in breeding, improving the breeding research system, and promoting the multi-dimensional development of FLB industry–university–research services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural production is constrained by farmland and water resources, especially in China with limited per capita resources. Understanding of the geographic changes between national crop production and resource availability with the spatial shift of crop production has been limited in recent decades. To solve this issue, we quantified the changes in geographic relationships between crop production and farmland-water resources in China from 1990 to 2015 by a spatial imbalance measurement model. Results found a clear spatial concentration trend of crop production in China, which increased the pressure on the limited farmland and water resources in the main production areas. The geographic imbalances between the total production of crops and farmland resources (∑SMI_PF) alleviated slightly, whereas that of water resources (∑SMI_PW) increased by 9.12%. The rice production moved toward the north of the country with less water but abundant farmland resources, which led to a decrease of 1.34% in ∑SMI_PF and an increase of 14.20% in ∑SMI_PW. The shift of wheat production to the south was conducive to alleviating the pressure on water resources, but the production concentration still increased the demand for farmland and water resources, resulting in an increase in ∑SMI_PF and ∑SMI_PW by 39.96% and 10.01%, respectively. Of the five crops, adjustments to the spatial distribution of corn production had the most significant effect on reducing pressure on farmland and water resources and ∑SMI_PF and ∑SMI_PW decreased by 11.23% and 1.43%, respectively. Our results provided a reference for adjustments in crop production distribution and for policy formulation to sustainably utilize farmland and water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seed innovation is of great importance for more sustainable agriculture and food systems. Using data on nationally approved rice varieties and farmers' adopted varieties, this study examined rice varietal trait changes in China over the past four decades and explored the impact of national crop varietal approval policies on approved rice traits as well as the effect of seed subsidies on adopted rice trait changes. The results showed that the yield of approved varieties and adopted varieties showed an upward trend over the past decades, and the yield of approved varieties was slightly higher than that of adopted varieties in most years. The rice quality of approved rice varieties showed a trend of continuous improvement but the adopted varieties showed a downward trend. The disease resistance of the approved varieties failed to show an increasing trend overall while the adopted varieties remained unchanged. National crop variety approval policies seemed to exert a significant positive impact on approved rice yield traits but exert a negative influence on disease resistance. Subsidies for superior seed varieties significantly increased adopted rice quality but decreased yield. The results suggest that national crop variety approval policies are the gatekeeper of improved rice, so the government can improve the policies to more meet farmers' and consumers' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has a marked continental monsoon climate characterized by dry and wet hazards that have destructive impacts on grape yields and quality. The purpose of this study was to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of dryness/wetness in the wine regions of China and explore the links between these variations and large-scale climatic factors. The crop-specific standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) was used to characterize the dryness/wetness using meteorological data collected at 168 meteorological stations located in or near the wine regions from 1981–2015. Results showed that most wine regions of China experienced a wetting trend. The drought and wet event characteristics were region- and site-specific. The main wine regions of China (e.g., Xinjiang, Helan Mountain and Hexi Corridor) were characterized by relatively high drought severity; the extreme drought frequencies of the three regions were higher as well (11.5%, 3.3%, and 3.6%, respectively). Xinjiang was also characterized by a high wetness severity and an extremely high wetness frequency of 16%, but the wetness severity decreased over time. A 4–6-year periodical oscillation was commonly detected over the wine regions. The dryness/wetness characteristics were highly associated with the Southern Oscillation Index, Niño 3.4 and the Indian Ocean Dipole, with highest correlation coefficients of −0.40, 0.36 and 0.43 at lag times of 11, 8, and 11 months, respectively. The serious dry and wet events that occurred in 2001 and 1998, respectively, were speculated to be associated with anomalous atmospheric circulation patterns. These results can be used to inform grapevine stakeholders at various levels (e.g., farmer and industry) for developing strategies to mitigate and adapt dryness/wetness events in the wine regions of China. It is expected that the approach proposed in this study can also be applicable to wine regions of other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management and improvement of paddy soils fertility are key factors for the future capacity of rice production. The return of rice straw to paddy soils is the best alternative to the application of industrial fertilizers for rice production sustainability. The best strategy for applying rice straw to improve soil nutritional capacity during rice growth has not yet been investigated. We compared straw decomposition in the ditches and ridges in paddy fields subjected to a typical crop management in southeastern China. Straw spread on the ridges provided lower residual straw carbon (C) concentration and mass, lower nitrogen:phosphorus ratio N:P, C:N, and C:P ratios, and lower soil salinity, as well as higher temperature, and higher N- and P-release capacity during the rice crop in comparison to the straw spread in the ditches. Therefore, applying rice straw to the ridges is better strategy than applying it to ditches to enhance rice production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unsustainability of China's agricultural production requires an urgent shift from traditional to more sustainable practices; however, the acceleration thereof remains challenging. New agricultural business entities (NABEs) lead agricultural modernization and strongly guide the application of innovative agricultural technologies and models. Thus, an understanding of the factors that influence NABEs' adoption of sustainable intensification practices will promote their widespread adoption. We developed a model based on innovation diffusion theory and the technology–organization–environment framework, which can both distinguish the influencing factors at different adoption stages and identify the influencing factors of technology adoption from a multidimensional perspective. The results indicate that differences in regional agroecological endowments emerge as the most important influencing factor. Relative advantage, perceived barriers, and agricultural extension services have a significant effect on adoption intention and decision, but a smaller effect on intention. Management and risk response capacities have a significant positive effect on adoption decisions, but no effect on intention. Meanwhile, organizational size has no effect on adoption intention or decision. Adoption intention significantly positively influences, but only partially explains, adoption decisions. Our findings provide a basis for technology promoters to categorize potential adopters by technology adoption stage and provide targeted strategies to stimulate technology demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer substitution (NSS) with different types of organic material is a cleaner agricultural practice for reducing the application of synthetic N input in farmlands while also relieving the environmental issues caused by the discharge of organic wastes. However, the effects of the NSS practice on crop yields, being the primary objective of agricultural activity, is still uncertain in China. This study conducted a meta-analysis to assess the impacts of the NSS practices with different types of organic materials on crop yields. Results showed that the average crop yield was increased by 3.4%, with significant differences under NSS, thereby demonstrating that this practice contributed to improving crop yields, especially of rice and maize. According to published reports, the NSS practices involving chicken manure, pig manure, and crop straw increased crop yields by 4.79, 7.68, and 3.28%, respectively, with significant differences, thus demonstrating the superior effects needed for replacing synthetic N fertilizer. Moreover, substitution ratios (SR) between 0% and 60% could be suggested when using the NSS practice, with the high SR recommended when the original soil fertility was adequate for crops. Considering the long-term effects of applied organic materials, improving the grain yield with the NSS practice should be expected in the long-term. By effectively applying the NSS, this study attempted to scientifically decide on the type of organic materials and the appropriate SR based on the conditions of the soil and the crop. The results provide research information for the development of clean agricultural production and food security in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercropping is an intensive agricultural cropping system widely practiced for enhanced yield and nutrient acquisition advantages. A two-year maize–soybean intercropping (MSI) field study was performed in 2018 and 2019 to assess the effects of potassium (K) fertilizer application on biomass accumulation and distribution of essential nutrients in the various plant parts (root, green biomass and seed) of maize–soybean intercropping (MSI). Three different treatments of K fertilizer applications (T0: no potassium application; T1: maize 40, soybeans 30 and T2: maize 80, soybeans 60 kg ha−1) were designed with 2 rows of maize by wide, narrow row planting in row arrangements of 160 cm + 40 cm. Soybeans were grown in 2 wide rows at a width of 40 cm and a row spacing of 60 cm between the rows of maize and soybeans, while the sole maize (SM) and sole soybean (SS) were grown with 70-cm and 50-cm row spacing, respectively. The results of the two-year study confirmed that, as compared to T0, T2 significantly increased nitrogen, phosphate and potassium (NPK) accumulation in all maize parts by 27%, 16% and 20% grain, 23%, 22% and 14% green biomass and 30%, 17% and 15% root, respectively. In soybean treatments, T2 significantly increased NPK accumulation by 23%, 22% and 24% grain, 16%, 15% and 12% green biomass and 18%, 19% and 20% root, respectively. The increased accumulation of nutrients under T2 raised the overall biomass and its distribution to root, green biomass and grain in maize and soybeans by 11% and 18% and 16% and 19%, 20% and 12%, respectively, compared to T0. On average, after two years of experiments, the T2 intercropped maize and the soybeans showed 103% and 64% of the sole yield and attained the maximum LER of 1.66 and 1.68, respectively. Our results reveal that managing optimum K level application (80:60 kg ha−1) can accelerate biomass accumulation and distribution of other essential nutrients in the plant parts of intercropped maize and soybeans. Therefore, it is immensely important to concern potassium application levels in developing a sustainable maize–soybean intercropping systems for achieving higher productivity and land equivalent ratio (LER). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a comparative analysis of seed quality indicators of 1196 hybrid maize seed samples from the main maize-producing areas in China from 2013 to 2018 was carried out. The results showed that the maize seed quality in China had changed obviously in the past six years, and was mainly as follows: The percentage of samples with coated seed in 2015–2018 was higher than 62.8% in 2013 and all exceeded 97%; the sample rate of packaging according to seed number was from 24.5% in 2013 to 58.6% in 2018, and the percentage of samples which met the prescribed quality standards was from 89.2% in 2013 to 98.4% in 2018. Principal component analysis indicated that standard germination energy (SGE), standard germination percentage (SGP), cold test germination percentage (CTGP), accelerated aging test germination percentage (AATGP), and mean field seedling emergence (FSE) were the primary predictors of seed germination and seedling emergence. Meanwhile, combining other statistical methods, regression models of SGE, SGP, CTGP, and AATGP were established to predict the field seedling emergence. Furthermore, seed bulk density and total starch content were correlated with seed vigor, which needs to be further studied. This study offered a theoretical basis and data support to better understand the changes of maize quality in China over the past six years, and provided an important reference to further improve the maize seed quality in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]