Impact of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies on the sustainable and intensive utilization of cultivated land: A perspective on agricultural machinery socialization services

The sustainable and intensive utilization (SIU) of cultivated land is key to achieving food security and promoting ecological balance at the national level. Agricultural machinery purchase subsidy (AMPS) is one of the agricultural policies with the largest capital investment involving the widest range of subsidies in China. It has both theoretical and practical significance to explore whether AMPS can stimulate the SIU of cultivated land. However, most existing studies investigate the influence of AMPS on agricultural yield and income, while the mechanism by which it promotes the transition to the SIU of cultivated land remains unclear. Given this, based on elasticity theory, this study constructed the impact mechanism of AMPS on the SIU and used the county data of the Huang–Huai–Hai Plain to conduct an empirical test. Emergy analysis showed that high levels of the SIU were concentrated in the central part of Hebei, and the inter-regional differences showed a decreasing trend over the years. Basic regression results indicated that AMPS contributed to improving the utilization ratio of natural resources, the utilization ratio of production factors, and emergy value productivity while reducing environmental load pressure, thus promoting the transition toward the SIU of cultivated land. The conclusion remained valid when the instrumental variables approach was applied for robustness testing after considering the endogeneity issue. The mediation mechanism test showed that AMPS improved the SIU of cultivated land by promoting the development of agricultural machinery socialization services (AMSS), which had a partial mediating effect. This study affirms the importance of fostering AMSS in promoting the SIU of cultivated land through agricultural subsidies. It is expected to provide innovative ideas and practical experience for the agricultural sector in advancing the SIU of cultivated land.