Exploring the agricultural synergy between carbon abatement and pollution reduction in China

Given the prevalence of environmental issues facing agriculture, along with the pressing challenges of climate change and environmental pollution, it is imperative to pursue the agricultural synergy between carbon abatement and pollution reduction. This paper proposes a systematic measure of the synergy effect based on the construction of non-radial directional distance functions and marginal abatement cost of carbon emissions and pollution. The weak disposability assumption between agricultural desirable and undesirable outputs are incorporated and modeled strictly. Furthermore, we conduct an empirical analysis on 30 provinces of mainland China and derive several findings: (1) The agricultural synergy between carbon abatement and pollution reduction exists in most provinces, and it shows an evident upward trend; (2) The eastern region exhibits the lowest marginal carbon abatement cost, the highest marginal pollution reduction cost, and the highest synergy effect; (3) Further path selection analysis indicate that the carbon abatement priority scenario is the most applicable strategy. Based on our empirical findings, this study also provides corresponding policy recommendations to Chinese agricultural regulators.