Can Increasing Scale Efficiency Curb Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution?

The Chinese government has made great efforts to improve the scale efficiency of land through various measures during recent years, hoping to realize the coordinated developing goal of promoting agricultural benefits and protecting the environment. Statistics show that China's land scale efficiency has steadily increased, but agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution has also increased, which seems contrary to the expected outcome. Can increasing scale efficiency really curb agricultural NPS pollution? This study uses provincial-level data from China, together with a panel model and spatial econometric model, to investigate the relationship between scale efficiency and agricultural NPS pollution. It is found that the increase of scale efficiency aggravates the agricultural NPS pollution, and the conclusion still holds after considering spatial effect. The results of spatial analysis shows that the agricultural NPS pollution is spatially dependent. Further decomposition of the spatial effect shows that the scale efficiency not only intensifies the local agricultural NPS pollution, but also has a spillover effect (though not statistically significant) on agricultural NPS pollution in the surrounding areas. It is worth noting that financial policy, raising wage income and upgrading industrial structure can effectively curb agricultural NPS pollution in this region and adjacent areas, which also deserves our attention in the control of agricultural NPS pollution. In addition, it is necessary to make financial and fiscal support policies specifically for the governance of agricultural NPS pollution, adjust the distorted prices of input factors such as chemicals and pesticide, and accelerate the transformation of small-sized farmers to family farms, in order to maximize the inhibitory effect of scale efficiency on relieving agricultural NPS pollution.