Comparison of indicators for agricultural green development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and mapping the way forward

Highlights

● Relationships between agricultural green development (AGD) and 10 UN SDGs are presented.

● Historical changes and characteristics of AGD in China are analyzed.

● Knowledge gaps in AGD indicators in China are identified.

Abstract

While agricultural green development (AGD) is highly recognized and has become a national strategy in China, it is imperative to bridge the knowledge gaps between AGD and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to evaluate the contribution of AGD to meeting the SDGs. The first aim of this study was to compare the AGD goals and indicators with those of the SDGs so as to identify their relationship. The next aim was to examine the historical evolution of AGD indicators and analyze the gaps between the current status of various indicators and their benchmarks. Limiting factors were identified in China’s transition toward AGD. These findings reveal that the indicators of AGD align with those of the SDGs, but have greater specificity to the context in China and are more quantifiable. There has been a significant increase per capita calorie and protein intakes in China, as well as a notable rise in agricultural output per unit of arable land and rural incomes from 1980 to the 2010s. However, these achievements have been accompanied by a high resource use and environmental pollution, highlighting the need for a more sustainable, environmentally responsible agriculture in China.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Agricultural green development / sustainable development goals / environmental sustainability / indicator system / optimization pathway

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2024548 contains supplementary materials (Table S1).

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31972517), Key R&D Program of Hebei, China (21327507D)

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Jianjie Zhang, Xiangwen Fan, Ling Liu, Lin Ma, Zhaohai Bai, and Wenqi Ma declare that they have no conflict of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. All applicable institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)