The impact of new quality productivity driven on green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture based on explainable machine learning

As an important source of carbon emissions in China, how to promote its green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture is an important starting point for policy formulation, and the emergence of new quality productivity, has brought new opportunities for agriculture to achieve green transformation. In order to deeply explore the influence of new quality productivity on green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture, based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2023, this paper uses kernel density estimation, global Moran index, standard deviational ellipse and Bayesian-optimized interpretable XGBoost model for analysis, and draws the following conclusions: First, the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture in China exhibits a significant growth trend, with regional development showing a polarized pattern. Meanwhile, this transformation demonstrates pronounced spatial clustering characteristics, evolving from “single provincial agglomeration” to “multi-provincial agglomeration”, the spatial difference gradually diminishes. Second, the contribution rate of new quality productivity to green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture is as high as 27.4%. When the development level of new quality productivity is exceeds the threshold value of 0.2207, it will significantly accelerate the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture. In addition, agricultural new-quality workers, agricultural new quality labor materials, and agricultural new quality labor inputs all significantly contribute to the green and low carbon transformation of agriculture. Third, the impact of new quality productivity on the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture is moderated by land production efficiency. Finally, the impact of new quality productivity on the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture exhibits heterogeneity across the functional region of grain production and and economic region. Based on the above conclusions and with corresponding policy recommendations proposed, the aim is to enhance the development level of new quality productivity and promote the sustainable development of China’s agricultural economy.