Temporal and Spatial Effects of Heavy Metal-Contaminated Cultivated Land Treatment on Agricultural Development Resilience

Heavy metal-contaminated cultivated land treatment (HMCLT) plays an essential role in the realization of sustainable utilization of cultivated land resources and sustainable agricultural development. Evaluating this policy’s impact on agricultural development resilience (ADR) has great practical significance. This paper reveals the impact HMCLT has on ADR from the perspectives of time and space, utilizing data from Hunan province between 2007 and 2019. The synthetic control method (SCM) and spatial Durbin model (SDM) are employed for investigating the temporal and spatial effects HMCLT has on ADR. The results demonstrate that the HMCLT policy has effectively improved the pilot cities’ ADR and can enhance ADR in adjacent areas from a spatial perspective. In addition to HMCLT policy, financial support for agriculture, farmers’ per capita disposable income, and rural population density are key factors affecting ADR. However, they all have a crowding-out effect on the ADR in neighboring areas. Due to these circumstances, while the governments make efforts in promoting the policy design and improvement of HMCLT, increasing the disposable income of farmers, narrowing regional differences in government financial support and human capital, and promoting regional interactions are essential to enhance ADR. This study formulates valuable insights for policymakers and researchers in the field of sustainable agricultural development. © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.