ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1686721
Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Driving Mechanism in Soybean Production Patterns: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia, China
Provisionally accepted
- Inner Mongolia Agricultural University College of Economics and Management, Hohhot, China
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Introduction: Analyzing the spatial-temporal evolution law and driving mechanism of soybean production pattern in Inner Mongolia provides a decision-making basis for optimizing agricultural structures and ensuring regional food security in arid and semi-arid regions. Methods: The study comprehensively utilized the logarithmic mean divisia index, spatial Gini coefficient, industrial concentration rate, and gravity center migration model to reveal the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of county-level soybean production patterns across Inner Mongolia from 2002 to 2022, and established a spatial Durbin model to explore the multi-dimensional driving mechanism underlying the spatial-temporal pattern evolution of soybean production. Results: The findings illustrated: (1) Temporally, soybean production capacity in Inner Mongolia has generally shown an upward trend, progressing through four distinct stages—fluctuating adjustment, yield breakthrough, scale expansion, and transformation-optimization. (2) Spatially, soybean production exhibits an overall distribution pattern of "eastern concentration and central-western diffusion", with persistently high spatial agglomeration and a shifting gravity center within the agricultural belt along the eastern foothills of the Greater Khingan Mountains. (3) Regarding driving factors, the expansion of the sown area served as the primary internal driver of production growth. Meanwhile, external factors—including precipitation, cultivated land resources, regional economic development, comparative benefits of agriculture and soybeans, labor scale, mechanization level, fertilizer input, and fiscal expenditure— significantly influenced the production landscape. Conclusion: Policy recommendations for optimizing the soybean production layouts in Inner Mongolia were proposed from the dimensions of consolidating the advantages of production areas, reinforcing technological innovation, deepening regional collaboration and optimizing fiscal mechanisms.
Keywords: Soybean production, Food security, spatial-temporal evolution, spatial Durbin model, Inner Mongolia
Received: 19 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jianjun Zhang, jgyzjj@imau.edu.cn
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