1. Introduction
Recent climate change, frequent pests and diseases, COVID-19 pandemics, and regional conflicts have posed serious challenges to global food security, threatening the lives and livelihood of people in all countries around the world, especially those in vulnerable groups [
1,
2,
3], and may lead to a failure to achieve the “zero hunger” goal (SDG 2) on schedule [
4]. In 2019, 144 million children under the age of five had developmental delays due to hunger and malnutrition [
5], and 47 million children were emaciated [
6]. Children with developmental delays are mainly found in Asia and Africa, accounting for 95% of the world total [
7]. Meanwhile, urbanization in poor areas such as Asia and Africa has also rapidly increased. The rapid urban sprawl promotes not only economic development but also generates enormous environmental burdens and ecological pressures, leading to a series of ecological and environmental problems [
8,
9]. Does the ecological environment, especially carbon emissions caused by urbanization, affect food production in poor areas? What is the impact mechanism of the rapid urbanization process in poor areas on the sustainable development of regional food? This paper attempts to discuss these issues.
According to gradient theory, the rural population flows massively to cities during urbanization [
10,
11], and the land scale expands in a disorderly manner, leading to the restructuring of production factor inputs [
12], changes in food production methods [
13], and technological efficiency [
14,
15]. This exacerbates the aging of the rural population [
16] and leads to the loss of arable land, structural shortage of labor, and the non-agricultural conversion of farmland [
17,
18,
19], which ultimately affects regional food security [
20]. Urbanization also promotes the growth of farmers’ non-agricultural income and the diversification of agricultural product consumption structure. This results in non-agricultural conversion of grain production structure [
21], which has a crowding-out effect on grain production. The regional imbalance in urbanization causes a serious imbalance in food production [
22]. Meanwhile, urbanized areas are generally leaders in the comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation of the economy and society, as well as in the innovation and promotion of green and low-carbon technologies, so they play a crucial role in promoting carbon reduction and improving carbon emission efficiency.
China has experienced the most massive urbanization in human history in the past 40 years. The urban permanent population has increased by 730 million, and the urbanization rate has increased from 17.9% in 1978 to 50.0% in 2010 and then surged to 65.2% in 2022 [
23]. Joseph E. Stiglitz observed that the two most significant events of the 21st century were technological progress in the United States and urbanization in China, which fully demonstrates the historical significance and profound impact of urbanization in China [
24]. There is no denying, however, that urban population growth and regional expansion in areas with high poverty rates may be more likely to cause systemic damage to the food system. Against the dual background of China’s new urbanization and rural revitalization, the transformation of agricultural production in poverty-stricken areas not only requires attention to the future livelihood status of small farmers [
25] but also actively explores ways to achieve sustainable agricultural development.
Potatoes are more stress-resistant, environment-friendly, and more widely used compared with traditional staple grains. They play an important role in increasing grain production and farmers’ income, as well as improving soil, making significant contributions to ensuring sustainable food security in poor areas. Due to the above advantages, potatoes have become the third largest food crop for global cultivation and consumption [
26]. Global statistics show that Asian countries are becoming regions with strong growth in potato production [
27], and potato production in China has also experienced stable growth for nearly half a century [
28]. It has initiated the strategy of developing potatoes as a staple food since 2014 [
29] to promote the cultivation and consumption of potatoes [
30]. The advantageous potato-producing areas in China are located in Northwest and Southwest China, with a trend of spatial concentration [
31]. Urbanization in Central and Western China has accelerated in recent years, driven by major strategies such as the Western Development Strategy and the construction of the “Belt and Road”. However, the typical characteristics of the environment in these regions include many unfavorable factors [
32], making it easier for them to concentrate on poverty-stricken populations [
33]. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the impact of urbanization in poor areas on carbon emissions from potatoes, as well as food security, is of great significance for a correct understanding of the relationship between urbanization and sustainable food production.
Urbanization is changing the food systems of countries around the world. Previous research on the impact of urbanization on food security has mainly focused on individual aspects of food production or consumption [
34,
35], with little attention paid to the analysis of urbanization on sustainable food production. Moreover, there is a lack of exploration of the relationship between urbanization and low-carbon production of specialty food in poor areas. Firstly, this study matched the distribution of main potato-producing areas with poverty-stricken counties in China and used the staple grain-producing areas as a control to determine the area of research of this study. Secondly, the urbanization levels and carbon emission intensity of potato production (CEIPP) were calculated based on the multi-dimensional urbanization framework of “economy-population-land”, and an improved potato production carbon emission model, and then evolutions of their spatiotemporal patterns were analyzed. Thirdly, the impact mechanism of urbanization on CEIPP was explored with the spatial Durbin model (SDM). A comparison was made with the results of carbon emission intensity of staple grains (CEISG) to highlight the significance of this study in achieving sustainable food production in poor areas. Finally, targeted urbanization strategies are proposed. The study is also expected to provide empirical references for other middle-income or developing countries and ultimately contribute to achieving global food security and sustainable development.
4. Discussion
Based on the empirical analysis, the study found that urbanization can generally reduce the carbon emission of potato production and promote its sustainable development. Obviously, this is different from the traditional view that urbanization has a negative impact on food security and the ecological environment [
20,
62,
63,
64]. Scholars have gradually realized that urbanization has a positive impact on food security in middle-income or developing countries [
21,
65,
66]. Urbanization has led to the release of rural land and a decrease in rural population, as well as a reduction in fragmentation of arable land, thereby promoting economies of scale and environmental protection [
66,
67]. Urbanization has promoted the development of agricultural mechanization and water-saving technology, solved the impact of labor shortage, reduced the water footprint, and promoted the sustainable development of food production. This is consistent with the conclusion of this study, which is that the rapid urbanization process in impoverished areas of China has led to a decrease in the carbon emission intensity of potato production and favored promoting green and sustainable development. We will further explore the impact of urbanization on carbon emissions from potatoes and staple crops based on China’s actual situation and propose policy suggestions to promote sustainable development of the potato industry.
Firstly, analyses of the factors influencing CEIPP show that urbanization-related variables (CU, PU, LU and EU) have the largest coefficient and the most remarkable impact. The rapid development of urbanization leads to a decrease in agricultural population, so the large-scale operation of potatoes has become a trend [
25,
65], and mechanization, greening, informatization, and service socialization have become important choices. The modernization of potato production also means a reduction in CEIPP. Therefore, it can be concluded that urbanization is the key factor affecting CEIPP. Consequently, it is necessary to promote new urbanization to achieve emission reduction and efficiency increase in potato production. The main potato-producing areas in China are located in the Southwest and Northwest with poor agricultural resource endowment and fragile ecological environment. It is urgent to promote sustainable urban development and thereby drive emission reduction and efficiency increase in potato production. Meanwhile, advantageous production areas and leading enterprises are encouraged to jointly promote potato-characterized urbanization [
68].
Secondly, according to the influencing factors of CEIPP and decomposition of the effects, CU, PU and EU have significant negative impacts on CEIPP, and the direct effects are also significantly negative, reflecting that the improvement of CU, PU, and EU can reduce CEIPP. Therefore, in order to reduce CEIPP and promote its sustainable development, it is necessary to improve PU and EU, and improve the quality and level of CU. On the one hand, the role of technology and financial development in the process of economic urbanization should be strengthened. It is necessary to improve the agricultural technology innovation service system and invest more in green technologies and financial capital in the modern production of potatoes. On the other hand, it is essential to fully leverage the spillover effect of population urbanization on agricultural carbon emissions reduction [
69] and improve the supporting mechanism for urban and rural education. In potato advantageous production areas, it is necessary to increase the scale of human capital accumulation, improve the quality of human capital [
70,
71], and optimize the spatial layout of human capital to promote balanced regional development.
Thirdly, according to the influencing factors of CEIPP and the decomposition of the effect, LU has a significant positive impact on CEIPP, and the direct and indirect effects are both positive, indicating that the improvement of LU increases CEIPP. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the efficiency of land use in the process of land urbanization and, to a certain extent, avoid disorderly expansion of land urbanization [
72,
73]. Based on the economic conditions of potato advantageous production areas, reasonable urbanization policies can be formulated to improve land use efficiency, manage agricultural land effectively, and improve the compensation mechanism for land acquisition [
74]. It is important to leverage the comparative advantages of potato production regions based on their resource endowment, transform potato production methods through spillover effects of technology, improve land use efficiency [
75], avoid excessive land occupation by agricultural production, and ultimately achieve quality and efficiency improvement in potato production.
Finally, the decomposition of the effect of urbanization on CEIPP and CEISG in poor areas shows that the improvement of CU helps to reduce CEIPP, but its impact on CEISG is not significant, indicating the different impact of urbanization on CEIPP and CEISG. Besides, existing studies show that potato planting has obvious advantages over the other three staple foods in terms of income and cost-profit ratio [
76]. Therefore, the promotion of the potato industry in poor areas in the process of urbanization will not only help to improve farmers’ income but also help to reduce the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions and promote the green and sustainable production of specialty food. It has become an important way to achieve SDG 1, SDG 2, and SDG 12 in these areas [
77,
78].
5. Conclusions and Limitations
5.1. Conclusions
The rapid urbanization process has gradually deepened its role in the sustainable development of agriculture, especially in the sustainable supply of food in poor areas. However, the impact mechanism of different dimensions of urbanization on food sustainability in poor areas has not yet been fully unpacked. Therefore, this study focuses on the specialty food potatoes mainly grown in poor areas of China, explores the impact mechanism of urbanization on the carbon emission intensity of potato production (CEIPP) with the spatial Durbin model, and compares with the carbon emission intensity of staple grain (CEISG) results. This study matched the distribution of main potato-producing areas with national-level poverty-stricken counties in China and contrasted with the main staple grain-producing areas to determine the research area. Then, an improved carbon emission model for potato production and a multi-dimensional urbanization framework of “economy-population-land” were used to calculate CEIPP and the urbanization levels, respectively. The mechanism of the impact of urbanization on CEIPP was explored with the spatial Durbin model (SDM), which was compared with CEISG results. The main conclusions are as follows:
Urbanization of main potato-producing areas developed rapidly from 2002 to 2020, which is in line with the decrease of CEIPP. The decrease in CEIPP has a significant impact on slowing down the growth of total carbon emissions and has greater potential for reduction, especially in Central and Western China, which has a large poverty-stricken population. This is of great significance in promoting the realization of SDG 1, SDG 2, and SDG 12. Compared with traditional staple grain, urbanization has become a key factor influencing CEIPP. The results indicate that different dimensions of urbanization can explain the impact of urbanization on the sustainable production of regional specialty food in China to varying degrees. The improvement of comprehensive urbanization, population urbanization, and economic urbanization reduces CEIPP, while land urbanization increases CEIPP. Therefore, to reduce CEIPP and promote its sustainable development, it is necessary to improve population urbanization and economic urbanization, properly avoid the disorderly expansion of land urbanization, and improve the quality and level of comprehensive urbanization. The study is also expected to provide empirical references for other middle-income or developing countries and ultimately contribute to achieving global food security and sustainable development.
5.2. Contributions and Limitations
This paper has made some contributions to the study of the relationship between urbanization and sustainable food production, especially in poor areas. Firstly, this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework of the multi-dimensional urbanization (economy-population-land) impact mechanism on sustainable food development, deeply explores the relationship between urbanization and sustainable food production, inspires divergent thinking on the impact mechanism of various types of urbanization on sustainable food production, and enriched the understanding of factors affecting sustainable food security. Secondly, compared with existing research, this paper mainly focuses on the urbanization process and the sustainable production of regional specialty foods in poor areas. Taking potato production, the regional specialty food in poor areas of Central and Western China, as an example, this study explores the impact mechanism of multi-dimensional urbanization in poor areas on the carbon emission intensity of potato production. This study provides a new perspective on enhancing the ability of urban development in poor areas to cope with climate change and exploring low-carbon agricultural production and sustainable nutrition improvement.
It is undeniable that this paper may have some limitations. Firstly, this paper lacks the latest data support. Thus, future research interests should focus on collecting the latest data and substituting the new data into empirical models for analysis to verify the robustness of this study. Secondly, we only selected potatoes, the most representative specialty food in poor areas of Central and Western China, as the research object. However, there are also some other specialty foods in these poor areas, such as barley and millet, which are also important entities affecting regional food security and nutrition improvement and are also affected by rapid urbanization. In future research, the scope of study on regional specialty foods can be expanded to supplement the research on the impact of urbanization on sustainable food security in poor areas. Thirdly, Chinese-style urbanization integrates the synchronous development of industrialization and modernization, and the urbanization process in poor areas selected in this paper is closely related to the Western Development Strategy implemented by the Chinese government; meanwhile, the Chinese government has been promoting potatoes as the staple food since 2014, and currently, potatoes have become a star brand of industrial poverty alleviation projects in many poor areas. Therefore, the conclusions of this study might be less representative of other nations’ agricultural efforts. In the future, research perspectives should be expanded to a global scale, and the impact of urbanization on sustainable food security in different regions or groups should be discussed.