Low-energy consumption growth of agriculture in China: From the perspective of decoupling between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural economic growth

On the premise of ensuring agricultural economic growth and energy security, promoting the decoupling between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural economic growth is pivotal for China to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals in agricultural sector. This study calculated the agricultural energy consumption in China from 2006 to 2022 based on the energy conversion coefficients of various agricultural inputs. On this basis, the decoupling statuses between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural economic growth in China were analyzed using the Tapio decoupling model, and the mechanism influencing the decoupling statuses was explored using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model. The findings show that: (1) Agriculture in China has entered an era of low-energy consumption growth (2018–2022). (2) The relationship between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural economic growth has gotten over the inflection point on the energy Kuznets curve (inverted U curve), entering a stage of strong decoupling with continuous fluctuations. (3) The decoupling statuses between agricultural energy consumption and agricultural economic growth features spatial correlation. (4) Agricultural cropping structure, agricultural technological innovation, labor force quality, environmental regulation, marketization, government support, rainfall, and agricultural insurance have nonlinear effects on the decoupling statuses, with significantly varying influential effects across different provinces.