Impacts of the integral development of agriculture and tourism on agricultural eco-efficiency: a case study of two river basins in China

Abstract

The integral development of agriculture and tourism heavily depends on natural resources, especially agricultural resources, and it also may contribute to the sustainability of agriculture. The sustainability of agriculture is usually measured by the agricultural eco-efficiency. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the agriculture and tourism integration on agricultural eco-efficiency, so as to reflect the role of the agriculture and tourism integration on promoting agricultural sustainability. Applying panel data of 19 provinces in Yangtze River Basin and Yellow River Basin in China from 2008 to 2019, this paper uses a PSTR model to demonstrate the impact of agriculture and tourism integration on agricultural eco-efficiency and its mechanisms. It is found that in the study area, the integration of agriculture and tourism can contribute to improvements in agricultural eco-efficiency, and when levels of integration are high, the promotional effect is enhanced. However, impacts vary among different regions to some extent. In terms of influencing mechanisms, inputs of agricultural labor, sown crop area, effective irrigation area and other factors decrease with continuous improvements of integration. The input of pesticides, fertilizers and other factors does not decrease in the initial stage of integration but undergoes a rapid decrease after crossing a threshold value. And it demonstrates that the integration of agriculture and tourism is beneficial for improving the agricultural eco-efficiency, so that it will contribute to agricultural sustainability. Meanwhile, this paper offers a new research perspective for discovering effects of agriculture and tourism integration, providing implications for formulating regional policies for the integration.

Exploring the Rural Revitalization Effect under the Interaction of Agro-Tourism Integration and Tourism-Driven Poverty Reduction: Empirical Evidence for China

“…In addition, tourism-driven poverty reduction can eliminate absolute poverty in rural areas, provide a good development environment for industrial development, promote the docking of tourism with agriculture, animal husbandry, and other related industries, form industrial interaction and linkage effects, and further promote the integration of agriculture and tourism. On the other hand, the integration of agriculture and tourism can promote the transformation and upgrading of the industry through the organic combination of agriculture and tourism, thus improving economic efficiency and achieving the purpose of eradicating poverty [8,50]. Agriculture and tourism are naturally complementary industries, with tourism being backwardly related to catering, accommodation, and handicrafts and forwardly related to agriculture.…”

Rural tourism development path under the perspective of industrial integration—Case study of Tangwan township, Guixi City

“…Pulina et al [17] consider agritourism as a set of activities in which people combine tourism with agricultural production, services, and agricultural experiences that are beneficial to farmable yields and farm incomes. Wang et al [18] found that the integrated development of both agriculture and rural tourism relies heavily on natural resources, especially agricultural resources, which may also contribute to the sustainability of agriculture. Using the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin in China as case studies, the article examines not only the economic but also the ecological effects of agritourism integration, providing insights into the development of regional policies for integrating agriculture and tourism [18].…”

“…Wang et al [18] found that the integrated development of both agriculture and rural tourism relies heavily on natural resources, especially agricultural resources, which may also contribute to the sustainability of agriculture. Using the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin in China as case studies, the article examines not only the economic but also the ecological effects of agritourism integration, providing insights into the development of regional policies for integrating agriculture and tourism [18]. Santeramo et al [19] analyze the synergistic relationship between domestic tourism and the wine industry in Italy and give their answer to the question of how to use the advantages of grapevine agriculture to promote the integration of the local tourism industry and give some policy recommendations for its development.…”

Does the Integrated Development of Agriculture and Tourism Promote Farmers’ Income Growth? Evidence from Southwestern China

“…( [23][24][25][26]. Moreover, it contributes to regional sustainability and environmentally friendly growth (Liu et al, 2023;Wang et al, 2022) [27,28]. Secondly, the research relating to its poverty alleviation effect has revealed that eliminating poverty by solely relying on agricultural production has natural shortcomings.…”