Agricultural sustainability assessment: A network-based approach with evidence from Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract

Sustainability assessment is one of the fundamental ingredients in modern agricultural development. Various sustainability assessment approaches relying on macroeconomic indicators have been proved to be inappropriate in practice. This study aims to establish a concise and testable assessment approach by employing the network and evolutionary geographic economic theory. The big data of Chinese agricultural enterprises in Jiangsu Province has enriched our research fruit in terms of empirical evidence. Results indicated the agricultural sustainability has been generally increasing at the provincial level for the last twenty years, but diversified development paths have appeared referring to different cities. Relevant recommendations were focused on the openness governance and horizontal integration of the local agricultural industry.