Dynamics and drivers of China's crop production carbon emissions in 2001–2021: A micro‒macro data integration study

China’s crop production evolution has significantly reshaped spatial and temporal patterns of agricultural carbon emissions. However, a comprehensive understanding of the underlying driving mechanism of agricultural carbon emissions remains limited, particularly across different regions and crop types. This study integrates micro and macro-level data, spanning 14 crop types, 13 emission sources, and 31 provinces, and constructs a full-lifecycle panel database from 2001 to 2021. Using Moran’s I global index analysis and spatial autoregressive models, we comprehensively assessed the impacts and spatial spillover effects of economic features, agricultural production characteristics, supporting policies, and climate conditions on carbon emissions from crop production. Our analysis reveals a nationwide increase in crop production carbon emissions, accompanied by widening disparities across regions and crop types. Additionally, it demonstrates that a 1% increase in urbanization, precipitation, and temperature is associated with a 0.02%, 0.26%, and 0.52% decrease in total agricultural carbon emissions, respectively. Moreover, contrary to previous findings suggesting that economic development exacerbates agricultural emissions, we observed that in major grain-producing regions, a 1% decrease in per capita GDP is linked to a 0.32% increase in carbon emissions, along with a 0.23% increase in emission intensity per unit area and 0.22% increase in per unit yield, which implies that these underdeveloped areas rely more on agricultural production and need more government support, putting more pressure on the environment. This study highlights the importance of integrating agricultural and environmental policies to address economic development, regional disparities, sustainable crop production, and carbon emission management.