Measurement and Temporal-Spatial Evolution of Agricultural New-Quality Productivity Development Level in Sichuan Province

Drawing on Marx’s three-element productivity framework, this study develops an evaluation system for the “new-quality” agricultural productive forces—focusing on laborers, labor materials, and labor objects. We apply this system to assess the development level of these productive forces across Sichuan Province’s 21 prefecture-level cities from 2013 to 2022, employing kernel density estimation and Markov chain analysis to trace their spatiotemporal evolution. The findings indicate that, overall, Sichuan’s new-quality agricultural productive forces have increased steadily year by year. Temporally, they exhibit a dual pattern of “overall leapfrogging alongside gradient differentiation,” while spatially they form a “Chengdu Plain leading, southern Sichuan catching up, and northeastern Sichuan building momentum” pattern. Most prefecture-level cities in Sichuan demonstrate strong performance in factor vitality and green livability; however, skill and cultural enhancement, technological innovation levels, and emerging growth capacities remain the core constraints on further development. We also find significant path dependence among cities and a positive spatial spillover effect, although this spillover is limited: the higher the development level in neighboring areas, the greater the likelihood that a given city will leap upward in its own development.