Assessing Rural Production Space Quality and Influencing Factors in Typical Grain-Producing Areas of Northeastern China

Abstract

Rural production spaces are important sites for agricultural activities, and high-quality rural production space is of great significance for guaranteeing food security and revitalizing rural areas. This study used Songnen Plain, a typical grain-producing area in Northeast China, as the study area and analyzed the spatial and temporal patterns of rural production space quality and its influencing factors from 2005 to 2020 using the rural production space quality assessment model, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and Geodetector. The results showed that: (1) The rural production space quality in the Songnen Plain has undergone a general process of change with 2015 as the node, showing an overall increase followed by a small decrease in some counties. Input–output efficiency exhibited a pattern with a high center and low perimeter, and rural production space quality exhibited a high in the south and low in the north pattern for all the years. (2) The spatial distribution of rural production quality in the Songnen Plain is highly correlated, and H-H and L-L zones had obvious spatial clustering characteristics. There were slight variations in spatial correlations of quality in each year, but the overall spatial quality exhibited a stable pattern of high in the south and low in the north. (3) The purchasing power for means of production, the level of infrastructure, and the level of agricultural mechanization were the main factors affecting the rural production space quality in the Songnen Plain, and the influence of population contraction and urbanization was gradually increasing. The results of the study can provide support for the sustainable development of rural production space and rural revitalization in Northeast China.