Driving Factors for Evolution of Agricultural Carbon Emissions in China Based on Water, Energy, Food, Land, Population, and Carbon Relationship

Agricultural activities are the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in China. Quantifying the driving effect for the evolution of China's agricultural carbon emissions is of great significance to the green development of agriculture and the achievement of "carbon peaking" by 2030. Based on the perspective of the relationship among water, energy, food, land, population, and carbon, this paper studied the driving effect for the evolution of China's agricultural carbon emissions from 2003 to 2022 and selected the influencing factors under the theoretical framework of interaction among the six factors. It employed the logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) method to decompose the driving factors of China's agricultural carbon emissions. The results show that agricultural labor productivity, land use efficiency, actual irrigation efficiency per <italic>mu</italic>, effective irrigation ratio, water use efficiency in farmland, population scale, and energy emission intensity are the factors that promote the increase in agricultural carbon emissions in China, among which agricultural labor productivity has the greatest effect, with a cumulative contribution rate of 286.84% to China's agricultural carbon emissions. Agricultural employment structure, energy consumption intensity, farmland use intensity, and actual irrigation ratio are the factors that inhibit the increase in agricultural carbon emissions in China, among which the agricultural employment structure and energy consumption intensity are the main factors that inhibit the growth of agricultural carbon emissions, with the absolute values of the cumulative contribution rates being 290.04% and 186.76%, respectively. Therefore, it is recommended to jointly consider the driving effects, focus on optimizing the agricultural employment structure and improving energy utilization efficiency, and formulate corresponding policies to reduce agricultural carbon emissions.