Abstract
While the advancement of sustainable agricultural development aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it has witnessed lackluster progress globally in recent decades. This study examines China's pairing assistance policy, executed in Xinjiang since 2010, as a quasi-natural experiment to discern the impacts and underlying mechanisms of the inter-provincial pairing assistance policy on sustainable agricultural development in the beneficiary locale. Employing regression analysis with control methods and a two-way fixed effects model leveraged upon provincial panel data spanning 2007 to 2016, this research reveals that: (1) the inter-provincial pairing assistance policy has markedly enhanced sustainable agricultural development in Xinjiang, demonstrating that a 1% increment in pairing assistance funds correlates with an approximate 0.5% rise in the region's sustainable agricultural development index; (2) the policy primarily bolsters sustainable agricultural development through the meticulous management of agricultural land resources. The insights derived from this investigation elucidate the effectiveness of China's policy framework in fostering synchronized and sustainable regional development and offer a valuable reference point for the augmentation of sustainable agricultural practices worldwide.