Does the goal of food security hinder the agricultural green and low-carbon transformation? Evidence from China

Agricultural production is crucial to food security and the realization of carbon reduction targets. Whether green and low-carbon development of agriculture can be achieved on the basis of ensuring food security is a common challenge faced by all economies. This study takes China’s 2004 designation of 13 major grain-producing areas as a quasi-natural experiment. Using provincial panel data from 2000 to 2022, a difference-in-differences model is constructed to explore if the policy can boost green transformation while ensuring yield growth. The findings reveal that the policy significantly reduces carbon emissions and agricultural non-point source pollution, with robustness confirmed by placebo tests, PSM-DID, and double machine learning. Crop structure adjustment and green technological progress have been identified as two key channels for promoting carbon reduction effects, among which labor force transfer plays a non-linear moderating role. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that excessive concentration of grain production is detrimental to the reduction and control of agricultural pollution, while the pollution reduction effect of the policy is more pronounced in regions with moderate to high levels of labor aging. It is recommended to further encourage appropriately scaled operations, promote the application and innovation of green agricultural technologies, and tailor strategies to local conditions to achieve agricultural green transformation, while continuing to uphold the major grain-producing areas policy.