Green production efficiency of China’s hog breeding industry: Spatial divergence and its driving factors

This paper analyzes the green production efficiency (GPE) and spatial divergence of the hog breeding industry, with the aim of providing a foundation for the rational layout of hog breeding and promoting the industry’s high-quality development. The paper uses the SBM model to estimate GPE in 29 provinces, cities, and districts of China from 2006 to 2019. Furthermore, it analyzes the spatial divergence of GPE and its driving factors using divergence indexes and the Geodetector. The results show that China’s GPE of the hog breeding industry increased from 0.409 to 0.496 between 2006 and 2019. The highest efficiency occurred during the I-period, while the lowest efficiency was observed during the II-period. The highest efficiency was in the key development region, and the lowest efficiency was in the potential growth region. The spatial divergence of GPE in the hog breeding industry expanded, with labor input, non-point source pollution, resource endowment, and environmental load bearing being the main driving factors for the expansion in each period. The potential growth region had the largest spatial divergence, mainly affected by resource endowment. In contrast, the constrained development region had the smallest spatial divergence, mainly affected by resource endowment and pollutant emissions. The spatial divergence of moderate and key development regions was considerable, mainly affected by environmental investment, environmental load bearing, and pollutant emissions. Therefore, the key to improving the GPE of the hog breeding industry is to promote the adoption of advanced technology, such as labor-saving, material-saving, and emission reduction technologies. Moreover, several actions should be taken to reduce the spatial divergence among different regions, such as integrated breeding, clean standards, large-scale breeding, and high-end boutique.