1.

INTRODUCTION

In the new era of “the Belt and Road” and slowing economic development, agricultural development in Xinjiang is facing new challenges and opportunities. In the 2023 Two Sessions, it was emphasized that the basic requirement for building a strong agricultural country is to achieve agricultural modernization, with the focus on promoting the industrialization of agriculture, accelerating the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas, and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. In 2024, the No. 1 Central Document proposed to build a modern rural industrial system that integrates agriculture, culture and tourism, and build agriculture into a modern big industry. In the face of “two markets” at home and abroad, the export volume of high-quality agricultural products bred by Xinjiang’s special natural endowments has increased significantly. However, the development of agricultural modernization has not only promoted the economic progress of Xinjiang, but also brought environmental pollution to a certain extent, so there are more requirements and high standards for the sustainable development of agricultural modernization in Xinjiang.

According to statistics, at the end of recent years, Xinjiang’s permanent population basically remained at about 25 million, but superior employment conditions and development opportunities have attracted a lot of migrants, resulting in an increase in population density in Xinjiang, which on the one hand drives Xinjiang’s new economic vitality and promotes economic development, and on the other hand also puts pressure on agricultural production and the environment. As can be seen from Figure 1, from 2010 to 2020, the agricultural development of Xinjiang is full of momentum, the cultivated land area and agricultural output value have increased significantly, and the economic growth is obvious. By the end of 2020, the agricultural output value has reached 375.4 billion yuan, an increase of 112% over 2010, accounting for 21% of the total GDP. The GDP output value was about 1,380 billion yuan, an increase of 157% over 2010, indicating that agricultural progress has significantly increased its role in promoting the economic development of the entire Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Figure 1.

The changing trends of population, cultivated land area, agricultural output value and GDP in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2020.

The expansion of cultivated land area in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2020 also increases the demand for fertilizer, pesticide and plastic film. As can be seen from Figure 2, the use of chemical fertilizer has the largest change, while the use of pesticide and plastic film have no wide fluctuation. By the end of 2020, the use of chemical fertilizer, pesticide and plastic film will be 2482271, 21800 and 238485T, respectively. Compared with 2000, the growth rates were 48.23%, 19.78% and 66.24%, respectively. It can be seen that with the development of agriculture in Xinjiang, the degree of environmental pollution is deepening day by day.

Figure 2.

The Changing trend of fertilizer, pesticide and plastic film use in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2020.

In short, the development of agricultural modernization in Xinjiang requires the continuous expansion of cultivated land area, and the increase of agricultural output value and population drives the economic development. In the process of development, the agricultural demand for fertilizers, pesticides and plastic film is increasing, so environmental pollution is inevitable.

2.

RESEARCH REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL MODERNIZATION

Agricultural modernization is the way and means of the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, which has the characteristics of integrity, regionalism, dynamics and times. Some scholars summarized the evaluation index system of agricultural modernization development level by region and province, which laid the foundation for the subsequent evaluation of agricultural modernization development level^1-9. As agriculture is limited by regional, climate and other resource endowments, its modernization degree is different in different regions, showing a decreasing trend from eastern, northeastern, central and western regions². The healthy development of agricultural modernization can promote the informatization and industrialization of rural areas, thus promoting the construction of urbanization. The coordinated development of agricultural scale, mechanization, informatization and industrialization is the main factor to promote agricultural modernization and rural economic growth. In the short term, the development of agricultural modernization promoted rural urbanization, but urbanization did not effectively promote the development of agricultural modernization^3-7. It is generally believed that agricultural modernization has an intensive and efficient production mode, which is conducive to the coordinated development of agriculture and environment. However, agricultural modernization does not reduce environmental pollution, but deteriorates environmental quality⁸. This study has certain significance on whether agricultural modernization development in Xinjiang has the same impact on environmental pollution.

3.

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGRICULTURAL MODERNIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION IN XINJIANG

3.3

Empirical analysis

3.3.1

Regression model setting.

In order to verify the impact of agricultural modernization on environmental pollution, a model between agricultural modernization and environmental pollution is constructed, and then stata linear regression is used to study. The model Settings are as follows:

As follows: Pollu is defined by Fertilizer use, Pesticide use and Plastic use, respectively; β₀ is the regression constant. β_i is the regression coefficient of each variable; ε₁ is a random interference term. t is the year. If β₁>0, there is a positive linear relationship between environmental pollution and agricultural modernization, that is, the higher the level of agricultural modernization, the more serious the environmental pollution; On the other hand, if β₁<0, the development of agricultural modernization will reduce environmental pollution.

3.3.2

Results and analysis.

In this study, the amount of Fertilizer, pesticide and Plastic used as dependent variables were used to characterize environmental pollution. The fixed-effect model of panel data was used to test the influences of agricultural modernization, GDP, GDP², industrial Structure, Envi_invest and technological progress on them, and was analyzed by Stata multiple linear regression, which were labeled as models (1), (2) and (3) respectively. The regression results of agricultural modernization and environmental pollution are shown in Table 4.

Table 4.

Test of the relationship between agricultural modernization and environmental pollution.

Independent variable	Model 1 (chemical fertilizer)	Model 2 (pesticide)	Model 3 (plastic film)
Constant	0.052	0.157	0.120
(0.938)	(1.106)	(1.310)
Agricultural modernization	0.375	0.385	0.487
(2.051)	(0.819)	(1.599)
GDP	0.849	0.605	-0.080
(2.115)	(0.586)	(-0.119)
GDP2	-0.220	-0.239	0.545
(-0.818)	(-0.345)	(1.217)
Industrial structure	-0.047	-0.046	-0.146
(-0.877)	(-0.333)	(-1.633)
Environmental protectioninvestment	0.105	0.159	0.189
(1.804)	(1.059)	(1.941)
Technological progress	-0.070	-0.228	-0.055
(-1.189)	(-1.500)	(-0.562)
R2	0.988	0.900	0.967
F	198.134	20.949	67.340

Note: The coefficient is a standardized coefficient; The values in parentheses are T-values; The estimated coefficients in the table are compared for their significance at the level of 10%.

According to the regression results of models (1), (2) and (3), it can be seen that the elasticity coefficients of agricultural modernization, industrial structure, environmental protection investment and technological progress are all a number between 0 and 1, which accords with the concept of input-output elasticity. The coefficient of GDP in model (1) and (2) is 0.849 and 0.605 respectively, and the coefficient of GDP² in model (3) is 0.545, indicating that Xinjiang’s economic development has brought a lot of environmental pollution. At the significance level of 5%, the F-test in all models passed.

From the results of regression estimation, the model fits well: The R² values in the model were 0.988, 0.900, and 0.967, respectively, indicating that 98.8%, 90%, and 96.7% of the change in Fertilizer use, Pesticide use, and Plastic use could be analyzed by all the above explanatory variables. The R² of model (1) is 0.988, indicating that it is more appropriate to describe the environmental pollution in Xinjiang by the amount of Fertilizer used, which is related to the mechanized large-scale fertilization in Xinjiang.

In all models, the estimated coefficient of agricultural modernization β₁ is significantly positive, indicating that the development of agricultural modernization increases the degree of environmental pollution, that is, the higher the degree of agricultural modernization, the more environmental pollution. The higher the level of agricultural modernization, it will lead to land expansion, increase the output of agricultural products, but also increase the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc., which correspondingly increase the burden of land, especially heavy metal pollution of soil, aggravating environmental pollution^10,11. For each unit increase in agricultural modernization, the use of plastic film, pesticide and fertilizer increased by 0.375, 0.385 and 0.487 units respectively, indicating that agricultural modernization has a relatively large impact on the use of plastic film and a relatively small impact on the use of fertilizer and pesticide. Pesticide is still an essential factor in Xinjiang’s agricultural production to reduce diseases and insect pests and increase crop yield, and the use of fertilizer and plastic film is a means to increase agricultural production. The increasing demand for agricultural products in cities and the increase in population density led to a corresponding increase in agricultural burden and greater environmental pollution^12,13.

In order to describe other control variables simply and clearly, model (1) is used as the environmental pollution measurement model below. As can be seen from the regression results in Table 4, the estimated coefficient of GDP is 0.849, while that of GDP² is -0.22, indicating that when other variables remain unchanged, the relationship between economic level and environmental pollution shows an inverted “U” shape, which is consistent with the hypothesis of Kuznetz curve, and Du et al. have also confirmed this conclusion⁸. The estimated coefficient of environmental investment is significantly positive, indicating that the increase of government investment in environmental governance has increased pollution, which may be because environmental investment data generally measure the pollution control of urban infrastructure and industry, while this paper discusses agricultural pollution. The estimated coefficient of technological progress is negative, indicating that the higher the technological level, the more able to reduce environmental pollution. The development of agriculture in Xinjiang has driven economic development, which is conducive to technological innovation, and technological change is conducive to improving resource utilization efficiency, reducing resource waste and pollution emission, and reducing pollution. The estimated coefficient of industrial structure is not significant.

4.

CONCLUSIONS AND COUNTERMEASURES

Under the background of slowing economic development, Xinjiang’s agricultural development is facing new challenges and opportunities. The No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2024 proposes to build a modern rural industrial system that integrates agriculture, culture and tourism, and build agriculture into a modern big industry. However, the development of agricultural modernization has not only promoted the economic development of Xinjiang, but also caused environmental pollution to a certain extent. In this study, the amount of fertilizer, pesticide and plastic film used in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2020 was used to characterize environmental pollution, and the impact of agricultural modernization and other control variables (economic development level, industrial structure, environmental protection investment and technological progress) on environmental pollution was studied. The results show that the use of chemical fertilizer is more representative to represent environmental pollution, the improvement of agricultural modernization has aggravated environmental pollution, economic development has a serious impact on environmental pollution, and the impact of industrial structure and technological progress on the environment is negative, but not obvious.

According to the classification criteria of agricultural modernization development level, Xinjiang is in the preparatory stage of agricultural modernization at this stage, and compared with large agricultural provinces, the overall development level and impetus are still insufficient. Xinjiang is rich in grain, vegetables, fruits and other agricultural products. While the supply of agricultural products increases, the use of fertilizers, pesticides and plastic film also increases, which far exceeds the “self-repair” ability of the agricultural land system, and the accumulation of “entropy” value of the system causes serious environmental pollution. Therefore, the following suggestions are put forward.