The impact of agricultural green development on common prosperity for farmers in rural areas

Green development of agriculture (GDA) is a critical issue for advancing agricultural modernization and serves as an essential foundation for comprehensive rural revitalization. The impact of GDA on the common prosperity of farmers in rural areas remains controversial. Therefore, this study develops an evaluation index system to measure the level of GDA based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities in China from 2013 to 2022. Subsequently, this paper analyzes the specific effects, mechanisms, regional differences and threshold effects of GDA on common prosperity using the fixed effect model, mediated-effects models, group regression method and threshold effect model. The results show that: Firstly, GDA has a positive impact on the common prosperity for farmers and rural areas. Secondly, the extension of the agricultural industry chain and the expansion of agricultural multi-functionality are important paths for GDA to promote common prosperity. Thirdly, there is regional heterogeneity in the impact of GDA on common prosperity. GDA has a significant impact on common prosperity in eastern China and non-food-producing regions, but it does not lead to common prosperity in western China. Specifically, the GDA in the central region and food-producing areas can only increase farmers' income and narrow the rural income gap, but it cannot bridge the urban-rural income gap. In addition, the influence of GDA on common prosperity has a threshold effect based on agricultural industrial agglomeration. The common prosperity effect of GDA gradually becomes prominent as the agricultural industrial agglomeration is raised to a certain level.