Spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors of soybean production in Sichuan Province

Sichuan Province is one of the 13 major grain-producing areas in China, as well as an important component of China’s emerging soybean planting area and southwest-producing area. Studies of soybean production patterns are crucial to Sichuan Province’simplementation of food security strategy and soybean industry development in Southwest China. This study analyzes the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and driving factors of soybean production in China from 2000 to 2020 in Sichuan Province using the Gini coefficient, industrial concentration index, exploring spatial data analysis, and optimal parameters-based geographical detector. The findings were as follows: 1) From 2000 to 2020, soybean production in Sichuan Province fluctuated and increased, the spatial distribution was very uneven, and the agglomeration level increased and gradually concentrated in the hilly areas of central Sichuan. 2) There was a strong positive spatial correlation in soybean production, and the overall manifestations were high-high aggregation and low-low aggregation types. 3) The influences of resource elements, comparative income, geographical climate, and economic and social factors on soybean production pattern change were highly significant, and most of them showed the interaction effect of nonlinear enhancement and double factor interaction enhancement. Among them, the impact of resource input, comparative benefits, and altitude on soybean production pattern was relative high and fluctuating upward trend for a long time. The influence of temperature and rural household size increases rapidly, the influence of transportation conditions and regional GDP decreases, and the driving force of cropping pattern system is the weakest. Based on these results, soybean production in Sichuan Province should focus on breaking the resource and environmental constraints such as cultivated land fragmentation and rural labor shortage, vigorously developing the productive service industry, and comprehensively improving the mechanization level of soybean production. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the ability of scientific and technological innovation to improve the yield level of soybeans in Sichuan Province. Additionally, it is critical to further optimize the policy system of soybean production, agricultural machinery, socialized services, insurance, and other links. Finally, we should focus on natural risks, such as drought caused by climate change, and establish and improve the early warning and prevention mechanism of natural disaster risks of soybeans, to further strengthen the comprehensive risk resilience of the soybean industry in Sichuan Province.