Exploring the Technological Changes of Green Agriculture in China: Evidence from Patent Data (1998–2021)

Abstract

China views the development of sustainable agriculture as a crucial aspect of agricultural development. Using green agriculture patents from 1998 to 2021, this paper analyzes the spatial and temporal distribution of patent numbers and investigates the IPC co-occurrence network. The findings are as follows. First, the number of patents for green agriculture in mainland China has increased significantly. From 2010 to 2015, the number of patents reached its highest point. Second, the spatial distribution of green agriculture patents is quite uneven, particularly in Heilongjiang province, which has the largest grain production and the lowest patent output level. Third, while the majority of IPC subclasses are well-developed, some are unevenly developed. In China, popular fields include seed breeding, planting, and organic fertilizers. This research aims to present empirical evidence for the future layout of green agriculture in China and the development of green agriculture in other developing countries.

Agricultural technology as a driver of sustainable intensification: insights from the diffusion and focus of patents

“…Among the different agricultural action fields, breeding, plant cultivation, and fertilizer are the foci of patent issuance, patent diffusion, and high-impact patents (Fig. 6), which agrees well with the primary foci of Chinese green patents on seed breeding, planting, and organic fertilizers (Hu and Xu 2022). Patents related to each agricultural category showed varied temporal trends and spatial variability in relation to patent numbers and diffused patents (Fig.…”

“…Patent reviews are useful for synthesizing the general technological developments in a field. Existing patent reviews focus on specific fields of agriculture, e.g., biotechnology (Foltz et al 2000(Foltz et al , 2003Taylor andCayford 2003), nanotechnology (Yata et al 2018), new plant varieties (Rickard et al 2016), green agriculture (Hu and Xu 2022), intelligent agriculture (Ren et al 2017), and climate change adaption (Auci et al 2021). Others analyze specific regions, e.g., the US (Sokoloff 1988;Taylor and Cayford 2003), China (Liu et al 2014), India (Mittal and Singh 2006), Brazil (da Silveira et al 2021), Europe (Auci et al 2021, and Africa (Taylor and Cayford 2003).…”

Does Free Compulsory Education Matter for the Green Transformation of Agriculture? Evidence from Rural China

“…GPT is measured by the number of green patents in agriculture, which can effectively reflect the development and application of cleaner production technologies in agriculture. In the current literature, agricultural green patents are also considered as a key factor driving the improvement of AGTFP [87].…”