Evaluating the sustainable development of agricultural mechanization in Hubei Province based on fuzzy DEMATEL and ISM combined method

Abstract: Sustainable agricultural mechanization has been one of the most important strategies for the decision-making and operations in the management of crop production. An accurate and rapid evaluation can greatly contribute to promoting the quality of sustainable agricultural mechanization in China. However, many complex and changing factors are confined to the sustainable agricultural mechanization in recent years. Generally, four dimensions can be maintained for agricultural mechanization: the social and economic benefits, the operation level, the impact on the resources and environment, and the level of the agricultural engineering industry. In this study, a systematic evaluation was made on the influencing factors in the sustainable agricultural mechanization in Hubei Province of China using the combination of Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) and Interpretive Structure Modeling (ISM). An evaluation index system was constructed to determine 13 indicators of sustainable agricultural mechanization, four parts of which were pressure (including the positive and negative factors), state, influence, and response, according to the hierarchical connections. A comparison was also made on the specific data of the 13 secondary indicators in the study area from 2004 to 2020. The quantitative data showed that the fuzzy DEMATEL-ISM performed better to integrate the subjective and objective opinions of influence indicators, further to determine the main influencing factors of sustainable agricultural mechanization. A pressure-state-impact-response model was selected to assess the index system of t sustainable agricultural mechanization. It was found that the pressure factors were the most significant driving factors in agricultural mechanization, accounting for more than 40% of the weights in the evaluation index system, followed by the State, and the lowest were Impact and Response. The results show that the economic factors were the most important development factors, while, the environmental factors dramatically increased to be the influencing factors. Furthermore, the input-output, scientific and technological factors of agricultural mechanization were also comprehensively evaluated in the index system. More importantly, the evaluation result showed that the sustainable agricultural mechanization in the study area was positive and orderly developed as a whole over the past ten years. Among them, the positive driving factors of the pressure and state-related indicators increased significantly, such as the economics, the agricultural engineering industry, as well as agricultural science and technology. The maximum contribution rate was attributed to the economic benefits and capacity development in sustainable agriculture manufacturing. The pressure part was remained basically stable, indicating the impact of labor reduction on agricultural mechanization. The agricultural machinery cost factors were basically maintained a small range of fluctuations. The adverse factors of the energy environment posed a great effect on income, output growth, and agricultural mechanization. At the first time, the response part was much higher than the pressure and impact parts, indicating the ever-increasing investment in the control of sustainable development. Much attention can be paid to the concept of sustainable development for the decision-making on the increasing investment, further offering greater opportunities and challenges for the sustainable agricultural mechanization in the end, some recommendations were also proposed for the future development of agricultural mechanization.