Abstract
With today’s rapid economic growth, the role of agriculture in production and life has come to the forefront. Many problems in China’s agricultural economy have seriously constrained the vitality of Chinese agriculture. Therefore, it is necessary to further strengthen the study of an agricultural economy, inject new impetus into an agricultural development, develop targeted solutions, and lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of China’s agricultural economy. Therefore, in this paper, based on the theory of sustainable development of an agricultural economy, this paper constructs a sustainable agricultural development index system in Jiangsu province from five aspects of the DPSIR model: driving force, pressure, state, impact and response and uses principal component analysis to make a comprehensive evaluation of the level of sustainable agricultural development in Jiangsu province from 2010 to 2016. The analysis results show that Jiangsu’s agricultural economy is overall better and steadily improving, and it has made a huge leap in the seven-year period from 2010 to 2016, showing better sustainability. We found that the state subsystem exposed some social problems after analyzing the subsystem, and if relevant measures are not taken in time to solve the emerged problems, it will affect the other subsystems and the sustainability of the agricultural economy.
1. Introduction
As the material basis for human survival and development, natural resources play an important role as energy sources and spatial carriers in social and economic development, and play an irreplaceable role [1–4]. However, with the growth of population and the acceleration of urbanization, some problems limit the sustainable development of agriculture, such as the reduction of arable land area and quality, groundwater over-exploitation and deterioration of an agricultural ecological environment [5–8]. The sustainable development of an agricultural economy is a development that ensures the regenerative function of natural resources as much as possible and poses no harm to natural resources while satisfying the people of the present [9, 10]. This will not only affect the conservation of natural resources for future generations but will also lead the country to evolve in a more rational and harmonious direction [1, 11–13]. Vigorously promoting sustainable agricultural development is not only an inevitable requirement for transforming an agricultural development model and building modern agriculture but also an inevitable choice for realizing the “five-in-one” strategic layout and building a beautiful countryside [14, 15].
In terms of sustainable use of regional resources, some problems limit kinds of evaluation methods and conceptual models in the international arena [16–21]. In the process of implementing sustainable development strategy, people must deal with the balance of the four factors of “society, economy, resources and environment,” of which resources are an important supporting factor, resources originate from the environment, the environment breeds resources, resources themselves are a component of the environment, and some factors in the environment are also resources. Therefore, resources are more important, and when resources are depleted, the environment will be completely deteriorated. In recent years, domestic and foreign experts and scholars often use the DPSIR model to analyze the problem of sustainable development of agricultural resources and economy, are an evaluation model proposed by OECD in 1993, and were first adopted by the European Environment Agency to assess the environment [22–24]. Next, we analyze the sustainable development of the agricultural economy in Jiangsu Province (as shown in Figure 1) as an example. Jiangsu is located in the north-south climate transition zone, ecological types and agricultural production conditions are unique, known as the “land of fish and rice.” Jiangsu is the largest japonica rice producing province in the south of China and is also a national advantageous area for the production of high-quality weak-grained wheat, corn, peanuts, oilseed rape, and a variety of mixed grains, mixed beans, and other special grain crops throughout the province and wild herbs more than a thousand kinds. Luoma Lake is located in the north of Jiangsu Province, spanning Xuzhou and Suqian. The lake is 27 kilometers long, with a maximum width of 20 kilometers, and a water area of 296 square kilometers (corresponding water level 21.81 meters). Hongze Lake, the water surface area is 1597 square kilometers, the average water depth is 1.9 m, the maximum water depth is 4.5 m, and the volume is 3.04 billion cubic meters. The lake has a length of 65 kilometers and an average width of 24.4 kilometers. The water level in flood season or flood year can be as high as 15.5 m, and the area can be expanded to 3500 square kilometers. The waters of the whole lake are composed of Chengzi Lake Bay, Lihe Lake Bay, and Huaihe Lake Bay. Gaoyou Lake is 48 kilometers long and 28 kilometers wide. The general elevation of the bottom of the lake is 4.5 meters. When the water level is 6 meters, the water area is 700 square kilometers; when the water level is 5.70 meters, the area is 650 square kilometers; when the water level is 9 meters, the water area is 780 square kilometers. Taihu Lake is located on the southern edge of the Yangtze River Delta, known as Zhenze and Lize in ancient times, is one of the five largest freshwater lakes in China, ranking third [1, 2], bounded by 30°55°40~31°32°58 north latitude and 119°52°32~120°36°10 east longitude, located in the south of Jiangsu Province, bordered by Jiangsu Wuxi to the north, Zhejiang Huzhou to the south, Jiangsu Changzhou and Jiangsu Yixing to the west, and Jiangsu Suzhou to the east.
2. DPSIR Conceptual Model
In the DPSIR [25–28] conceptual model as shown in Table 1 and Figure 2, “Driving Force” refers to the core factor that dominates the development and direction of an agricultural system and determines its fundamental fate, and is the fundamental force and essential cause [29, 30].
We can see from Table 2, in the process of assessing the sustainable development of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy, that Driving Force is the main influencing factor and has become the leading driver of Jiangsu’s sustainable agricultural economy. The common driving factors are as follows: population growth, urbanization, market changes, economic growth, and other factors. The growth of China’s population will drive consumer demand and a broader market for related agricultural products. On the other hand, urbanization will reduce the number of farmers, which in turn leads to the reduction of an agricultural land, bringing it close to the land red line, which has a serious negative impact on an agricultural development. Market changes, as a direct influence, can have a significant impact on agriculture directly.
Some problems limit factors that affect market prices and agricultural production materials, such as harvest, weather, supply, and demand. This can lead to a series of price reactions that can have particularly severe effects on the structure and scale of production in agriculture. Economic growth, on the other hand, stimulates the consumption of the relevant agricultural products. Therefore, to summarize, we combine an agricultural GDP per capita and price index of agricultural production materials as economic indicators in this study and Engel’s coefficient, natural population growth rate, and urbanization rate as social drivers.
This set of indicators puts a series of “pressures” on the sustainability of agriculture, as shown in Table 3, which are reflected in the overconsumption of natural resources, including energy and minerals, which in turn has a strong social impact on agricultural systems. Examples include environmental damage, overexploitation of resources, and adaptive imbalance of ecosystems. Combined with the above analysis, we use indicators such as value added in agriculture per 10,000 Yuan, electricity per 10,000 Yuan, water per 10,000 Yuan, and water resources development and utilization rate to reflect the metrics of socioeconomic drivers of pressure on agriculture. In addition, we also consider the overexploitation and utilization of natural resources such as water and soil resources and labor resources by the secondary and tertiary industries, as well as the competition among them as an influencing factor, and the competitive intensity of such influencing factors can be reflected by the land competition index and water competition index. Similarly, the rural labor force is more likely to be attracted by the wage level of secondary and tertiary industries, which is the income of an agricultural production; thus, the competition intensity of secondary and tertiary industries on rural labor resources can be reflected by the index of per capita income difference between urban and rural residents. The resource competition index refers to the ratio of industrial and an agricultural output value per unit of resources (including water resources and land resources). The income difference index between urban and rural residents is expressed by the ratio of urban residents’ disposable income to rural residents’ per capita disposable income.
The “state” refers to the state of resource utilization, an agricultural productivity, as shown in Table 4, management efficiency, and living standards of rural people as well as the state of the agricultural environment, etc. of the entire agricultural system under the action of driving forces and pressures, among which the state of agricultural resources is expressed by the reclamation index (land area land area), water resources per unit area of land for an agricultural use, natural disasters. The rate of disaster, forest greening rate (the sum of actual forest area and orchard area at the end of the year and the ratio of the city’s land area), and other indicators to indicate an agricultural production efficiency and management level with indicators such as replanting index, an agricultural land productivity (total output value of plantation per unit of land area), and an agricultural labor productivity (total output value of agriculture per unit of an agricultural labor) with rural per capita disposable income to indicate the standard of living of farmers with a unit area of pesticides.
“Impact” refers to the impact of the system formed by the structure of the agricultural industry on human production and life as shown in Table 5. It is used to describe the change in the state of the environment caused by various social factors and reflects the final result of the state change, for example, vegetation cover, etc.
“Response” refers to the integration of an agricultural industry structure and consumption structure. To achieve sustainable development of an agricultural industry and protection of an agricultural environment, as shown in Table 6, human production and life are inseparable from the state of an agricultural system.
Therefore, the model has a clear causal relationship among the factors, is able to monitor the continuous feedback mechanism among the indicators, is an effective way to find the causal chain between human activities and environmental impacts, and thus is generally recognized and applied. In conclusion, the DPSIR conceptual model provides clear ideas to help select relevant elements and indicators, organize data, or information, can ensure that key elements and information are not overlooked, and helps to systematically analyze environmental or sustainable development issues, as shown in Figure 3.
The DPSIR model describes a causal chain between the origins and outcomes of environmental problems, which suggests that social problems are considering, as shown in Figure 3, and economic and demographic development act as long-term drivers of environmental stress, resulting in changes in ecological status. This causal chain shown that social, economic, and demographic developments act as long-term drivers on the environment, thus exerting pressures on the badlands and causing changes in the ecological state, resulting in various impacts on the ecological environment, such as arable land resources; these impacts lead to human responses to changes in the ecological state, which in turn act on the social, economic, and demographic complex system or directly on the environmental pressures, state, and impacts. These impacts drive human responses to changes in the state of the ecosystem, which in turn act on the complex system of social, economic, and demographic factors or directly on environmental pressures, states, and impacts. In the DPSIR model as a whole, the drivers, pressures, states, and impacts describe the objective state of each factor in the environment, and the responses are the measures taken to keep the ecological environment in harmony and sustainable development. The cause-and-effect relationship among the five components of the DPSIR model is not only static but also reflects a dynamic mechanism. For example, the relationship between driving forces and pressures generated through human socioeconomic activities is a relationship between a technical ecoefficiency function and a use function, with more driving forces utilized while generating less pressure indicating high ecoefficiency. Similarly, the relationship between impacts on humans or ecosystems and the state of the environment depends on the carrying capacity between these systems. Whether society responds to impacts depends on how those impacts are perceived and evaluated, the results of social responses to drivers depend on the effectiveness of the response.
3. Evaluation Methodology
The principal component analysis method was chosen for its factor analysis, and the formula was calculated as follows.
Therefore, the Jiangsu Agricultural Economic Sustainability Index can be calculated as follows.
The meanings of the parameters are shown in Table 7.
4. Experimental Results
4.1. Analysis of Subsystem
We can see initial eigenvalue from Figure 4. First, we have to analyze the various indicators of this subsystem and the five indicators listed by the author on its principal component analysis, and we can see this data from the histogram. Because too much data will affect the calculation, so we follow the contribution rate greater than 85% to extract the main influence components and then get the expression of the driving force subsystem as
Combining equations (5) and (6), we can calculate the following values:
Combining and summing them gives the following values:
is the standardized data calculated by the method under the driver system, is the sustainability index of the Jiangsu agricultural driver subsystem, and represents the proportion of the eigenvalues corresponding to each principal component to the sum of the total eigenvalues of the extracted principal components to calculate the driver system values as weights.
From Figure 5, we can know that the comprehensive index of sustainable development jumped from -1.7654 in 2010 to 1.8778 in 2016, which is a huge progress and a rapid improvement of sustainable development, which indicates that the excessive driving force causes the whole system to show a strong vitality. Specifically, the driving force subsystem includes a total of five basic indicators, mainly economic indicators, among which the indicators of an agricultural GDP per capita and urbanization rate have been growing rapidly in recent years, while the Engel coefficient has been on a decreasing trend, indicating that the level of economic and social development in rural Jiangsu has been steadily improving, urbanization has been developing rapidly, and the scale of an agricultural economy has been growing.
The stress subsystem contains six underlying indicators, and we initially analyzed these six relevant indicators. The results of the principal component analysis were extracted from the two main principal components for the analysis, and the total variance contribution rate was 94.212% cumulatively. As can be seen in Figure 6, the value showed an overall increasing trend, with the highest value in 2015, followed by a fall of about 0.25. This indicates that some factors have appeared to interfere with the composite value, which may be related to resource and energy consumption, such as water consumption, electricity consumption, and energy consumption, and objective causes should be found and corrected in time for him to not have the problem of declining year after year, so as to maintain sustainable development efforts. It indicates that the way of crude growth of Jiangsu agriculture, which is mainly resource consumption, is gradually changing, while the competition index of water and soil resources, which reflects the competition between secondary and tertiary industries and agriculture in resource utilization, and the index of per capita income gap between urban and rural residents have an upward trend, but the magnitude is not large; thus, the overall result is that the value of the pressure subsystem is in a downward trend.
The state subsystem contains far more basic indicators than other indicators, which is since the state subsystem is influenced by so many factors, and various dimensions and types of factors can affect it from all angles. After analyzing its principal components, it is found that the total variance contribution is 91.3245% accumulated by extracting 3 principal components. Based on the Figure 7, we can see that the combined parameters of the state subsystem are positive except for 2013. However, its data trend is very unstable, showing a stable upward trend in the first three years and a particularly high volatility in the latter years, which hides the deep-seated reasons behind. For example, resource status, the average amount of water per acre of arable land for an agricultural use, forest greening rate, an agricultural land productivity, replanting index, an agricultural labor productivity, fertilizer and pesticide carrying capacity per unit area, etc. all have a strong influence on it.
The impact subsystem contains five base indicators, which are lower than the state subsystem and the response subsystem. This is because the state subsystem is influenced by so many factors, and various levels and types of factors can affect it from all angles. The factors influencing the state subsystem mainly include rural per capita arable land area, grain yield per unit area, per capita grain share, per capita meat share, and per capita vegetable share. We can see experiments from Figure 8. After analyzing its principal components, it was found that 2 principal components were extracted, and the total variance contribution was 93.1435% cumulatively. Through the histogram, we can see that the impact subsystem sustainability index of the sustainable development system of Jiangsu agricultural economy is in a situation of steadily increasing, the trend, from -1.4345 in 2010 to 1.9467 in 2016, indicating that the state of the sustainable development system of agriculture in Jiangsu is relatively strong for the changes generated by the ecosystem, and the resource environment, etc. achieve better self-healing ability.
The response subsystem sustainability index () analysis processed the seven basic indicators contained in the response subsystem of Jiangsu agricultural economy by principal component analysis, and a total of three principal components were extracted, whose total variance contribution rate was 91.8% cumulatively. The base indicators are lower than the state subsystem and more than the other subsystems. This is because the response subsystem is affected by so many factors, and various levels and types of factors can affect it from all angles. As can be seen from Figure 9, the overall trend of the UR of the response subsystem value of Jiangsu agriculture in the seven years from 2010 to 2016 is increasing, from -1.6439 in 2010 to 1.9993, indicating that Jiangsu modern-type agriculture has a stronger ability to adjust to the current economic and social development, wasteful consumption of agricultural resources, pollution of the agricultural ecology and environment, and the sustainable development of agriculture to external pressure. The adjustment mechanism of sustainable agricultural development to external pressure is gradually improving. Specifically, the seven basic indicators contained in the Jiangsu agricultural response subsystem mainly reflect some measures taken by Jiangsu in the process of promoting sustainable agricultural development, which have played a role and achieved some better results.
4.2. Analysis of Jiangsu Agricultural Sustainable Development Level Composite Index (TASDI)
The sustainable development values of the five major systems were calculated using the linear weighting method to obtain the Jiangsu Agricultural Sustainable Development Index (TASDI). The smaller the value of TASDI, the lower the level of sustainable agricultural development; the larger the value, the higher the level of sustainable agricultural development. The calculated results of the comprehensive evaluation of the sustainable development of agriculture in Jiangsu from 2007 to 2013 are shown in Figure 10.
Through the measurement and analysis of the five indices, it is generally clear that the level and development trend of Jiangsu’s agricultural economic sustainability has been increasing over the seven-year period from 2010 to 2016, and although it remained stable in 2012-2013, it began to rise steadily again in 2014. This indicates that Jiangsu’s agricultural economic sustainability has been steadily enhanced by all system junctions except the state subsystem under the premise of comprehensive socioeconomic development. The state subsystem, however, shows great variability. The combined parameters of the state subsystem are positive except for 2013, but its data trend is very unstable, showing a steady upward trend in the first three years and particularly high volatility in the latter years, which hides a deep-seated reason behind. In the process, the majority of construction indicators show a steady trend toward improvement. However, the various levels of sustainable development of an agricultural economy are still unbalanced, and some of the indicators are not completed satisfactorily, such as the increase of natural population growth rate, the low rate of water quality compliance of drinking water sources, and the decrease of degraded land restoration rate. At present, the comprehensive index of ecological sustainable development in Jiangsu is high and in a high state of sustainable development, we can see experiments from Figure 11.
Therefore, in the future, the relevant construction should be promoted in a comprehensive and coordinated manner while paying more attention to the construction of weak links, adhering to the scientific concept of development as the leader, conscientiously implementing the “Jiangsu An agricultural Economy Sustainable Construction Master Plan,” actively promoting the relevant We should adhere to the scientific development concept, conscientiously implement the “Master Plan for Sustainable Construction of Jiangsu An agricultural Economy,” actively promote relevant infrastructure construction, strive to change the economic growth model, and increase efforts to coordinate an agricultural economic development and an agricultural environmental protection.
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
In general, from 2010 to 2016, the comprehensive score of Jiangsu’s agricultural economic sustainability has increased year by year, from -1.30342 in 2010 to 1.63766 in 2013, it only started to be a value greater than 0 in 2014, and the overall agricultural sustainability has improved significantly. From the evaluation score, among the five systems of the DPSIR model, the best development status and trend is the Jiangsu agricultural response subsystem, followed by the impact subsystem, which is the pressure subsystem, then the driver subsystem, and the pressure subsystem, and the response subsystem is ranked last. Specifically, first, compared with other subsystems, the overall pressure subsystem of Jiangsu agricultural economy is steadily increasing, indicating that the pressure on the development of Jiangsu agricultural economy is gradually increasing, thus hindering the sustainable development of Jiangsu agricultural economy; second, the steady improvement of Jiangsu agricultural economy, the speed of urbanization, and the growing scale of the economy have led to the good development of the driving force system of Jiangsu agriculture, which promote the benign development of its sustainability; third, the overall development of the state subsystem of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy has a tendency to fluctuate drastically, indicating that despite the pressure of rapid economic and social development, accelerated urbanization, resource consumption, and resource competition, the state subsystems of society, resources, and environment under Jiangsu’s agricultural economy have received drastic impacts, which seriously restrict the sustainability of the system; fourth, the response of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy subsystem, indicating that to achieve and promote the sustainable development of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy, corresponding measures must be taken to increase the intensity of an agricultural investment and investment in an agricultural scientific research, transform the development model of an agricultural production, intensively use agricultural resources, and protect and improve the agricultural ecological environment; fifth, the development of the five subsystems of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy sustainable development system is still uneven, the level of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy sustainable development. In general, the level of sustainable development of Jiangsu agricultural economy has shown a clear and steady upward trend. Through the evaluation and analysis of the sustainable development of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy from 2010 to 2016, the overall comprehensive index of Jiangsu’s agricultural economy has maintained a steady growth, and the sustainable development of agriculture is in a good trend, but there is still room for significant improvement. To achieve sustainable agricultural development, given the actual sustainable agricultural development in Jiangsu and the problems in the utilization of resources, it is recommended that first of all, it is necessary to strengthen organizational leadership, strengthen the implementation of responsibilities, continue to introduce a series of favorable policies and measures for Jiangsu’s agricultural economy and ecological environmental protection, and establish a long-term management mechanism, and while coordinating an agricultural production, it is necessary to pay more attention to the environmental protection of agricultural resources. We need to increase the protection of arable land, water, forest, wetland, and other resources, develop green, ecological, recycling, and water-saving agriculture, and improve the efficiency of an agricultural resource utilization and the benefits of an agricultural ecological environment. Secondly, we need to improve the monitoring system, strengthen the publicity and guidance, to ecological environmental protection, an agricultural input reduction, resource recycling, and an agricultural ecological restoration as a means to strengthen scientific and technological support, increase investment to promote the comprehensive prevention and control of an agricultural surface pollution, focusing on the implementation of eight projects, and strive to achieve the city’s “one control, two reduction, three basic” goal, and effectively improve the rural ecological environment to enhance the sustainable development of the agricultural economy of Jiangsu. Finally, the construction of Jiangsu beautiful countryside has an opportunity to fully explore the ecological and economic value of the countryside, the ecological advantages effectively into development advantages, and the rural energy saving and emission reduction work into the ecological village and new rural construction assessment system, at the same time, to cultivate the concept of rural green consumption, supply-side reform to promote the rural ecological environment governance, to provide strong support for rural ecological environment governance, and to ultimately achieve sustainable agricultural development.
Data Availability
The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Social Science Fund: Risk Assessment of Corn lndustry Chain under the Background of Agricultural Supply-side Reform HB18GL055.