What Drives the Fluctuations of ?Green? Development in China?s Agricultural Sector? An Entropy Method Approach

The sustainable and coordinated development of agriculture directly associated with the national economy and social development, and the agriculture development is closely affected by several societal, economic and environmental effects. Based on the panel data of agricultural production from 2004 to 2015 in China, 21 indicators were selected to construct a five-dimensional index system of sustainable agricultural green development, including population, society, economy, environment and resources perspective. Using entropy method and coordination degree method, the spatial-temporal dynamics and coordination degree of agricultural green development index (AGDI) are explored. The results show that: sustainable agricultural green development is mostly affected by the sustainability of population system, followed by the sustainability of environmental system, resource system, economic system and societal system. In terms of the spatial dimension, it has large differences between different regions. In terms of the coordination degree of AGDI between the five dimensions, it shows a trend of "continuous decline and then rising fluctuation" from 2004 to 2015. From the spatial distribution of the coordination degree between these subsystems, the number of provinces with "coordination" and "comparative coordination" between the sustainability of each subsystem is increasing, at the same time, the provinces belong "coordination" and "comparative coordination" are mainly distributed in the central and eastern regions of China. This paper analyses the spatial-temporal dynamics and coordination degree of AGDI based on the evidence collected in China, it furthered explores the great significance of the five-dimensional systems in improving the level of agricultural sustainable development.