Evaluation and Influence Factor of Green Efficiency of China’s Agricultural Innovation from the Perspective of Technical Transformation

Agricultural innovation is important for the green transformation of agriculture. Based on the perspective of technology transformation, this paper builds a theoretical analysis framework and evaluation index system for green efficiency of agricultural innovation, and discusses the evolution laws and influencing factors of the green efficiency of China’s agricultural innovation from 2005 to 2017 utilizing the DEA model, Malmquist index, and Tobit regression analysis. The results show that: 1) The overall green efficiency of China’s agricultural innovation is not high, the green efficiency of agricultural innovation in eastern China is mainly driven by pure technical efficiency, while that in central and western China is mainly driven by the scale efficiency. The green efficiency of agricultural innovation shows significant spatial differences, and the low efficiency and relatively low-efficiency regions moved to central and southeastern China. 2) Technical progress is the main force affecting the change of green total factor productivity of China’s agricultural innovation, seeing a trend of decrease followed by an increase. Pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency exhibit an increasing-decreasing trend, and gradually transform into key factors that restrict the improvement of the green total factor productivity of agricultural innovation. 3) Agricultural technologies’ diffusion, absorption, and implementation are three influencing factors of the green efficiency of agricultural innovation. The local level of informatization, the number of agricultural technicians in enterprises and institutions, average education level of residents, and the level of agricultural mechanization have positive impacts on the promotion of the green efficiency of agricultural innovation, promoting the diffusion, absorption and implementation of agricultural innovation technology can significantly improve the green efficiency of agricultural innovation.