Abstract:

Evaluating the high-quality development of agriculture from a county-level perspective is of great significance for optimizing the allocation of agricultural resources and promoting coordinated regional development. This paper takes 85 counties in Gansu Province as the research object， and based on multiple dimensions， constructs an evaluation index system for the high-quality development of county-level agriculture. By comprehensively applying methods such as kernel density estimation， Theil index， standard deviation ellipse and gravity center migration， random forest and geographical detector models， it reveals the spatio-temporal evolution and driving mechanism of the high-quality development of county-level agriculture in Gansu Province from 2014 to 2023. The results show that： （1） The level of high-quality agricultural development in counties of Gansu Province has steadily improved. The dimension of shared achievements has developed most significantly， while the process of green development has lagged behind. The number of counties with low values has gradually decreased. The high-quality agricultural development among counties has entered a stage of micro-differentiation， and regional coordination has been enhanced to some extent. （2） The overall differences in the high-quality development of county-level agriculture show a contracting trend， with intra-regional differences being the main source of overall differences， and the contribution rate of differences in the Hexi Region being the lowest. （3） The spatial distribution shows the characteristics of being high in the northwest and low in the southeast， with the number of counties at a high level continuously increasing and mainly concentrated in the Hexi Region； the spatial form is distributed in a narrow and long pattern from northwest to southeast， and the spatial gravity center is stable within Yongdeng County. （4） The high-quality development of county-level agriculture is the result of the coordinated driving of economic development， urban-rural integration， resource endowment and natural background， showing a feature of gradually shifting from being dominated by natural resource constraints to being mainly driven by social and economic factors. The research results can provide scientific references for the implementation of high-quality development of county-level agriculture in Gansu Province.

Key words: county, high-quality agricultural development, spatiotemporal evolution, driving mechanism, Gansu Province