Exploring the Impact of Agro-Ecological Efficiency on Poverty Reduction: A Case Study from China

In recent years, China has made significant progress in poverty alleviation, and the sustainable development of poverty reduction has become a key focus of rural work for the new era. The significant wealth gap in Guangdong Province presents a typical case for analyzing regional poverty issues in China. This study explores the relationship between rural development and agro-ecological progress from a regional economic perspective. The SE-DEA model is applied to evaluate the agro-ecological efficiency (AEE) of each prefecture-level city in Guangdong from 2012 to 2021. Based on AEE value calculation, the study explores eco-agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction, and the CCEMG model is applied to estimate eco-agriculture development’s impact on poverty in Guangdong Province. The results demonstrate that (1) the overarching trend of AEE in Guangdong Province shows a stable growth, but variations exist among prefecture-level cities due to differences in population size, wealth disparity, and topographic structure; (2) the development of AEE in Guangdong Province contributes to the increase in farmers’ disposable income, thus accelerating rural poverty reduction; and (3) besides AEE, factors such as culture, education, and health care also contribute to poverty alleviation.