Abstract: Based on the provincial panel data of 1997-2016, this paper uses SBM-Undesirable model to analyze the spatial and temporal characteristics of agricultural ecological efficiency in China, then on such basis, it employs the grey relational analysis method to explore the main driving factors of spatial and temporal evolution of agricultural ecological efficiency in China. The results show that China’s agricultural ecological efficiency is generally presenting a fluctuating and rising tendency and shows obvious regional differences. The agricultural ecological efficiency is mainly influenced by eight factors: the confirmation of farmland rights, the level of financial support for agriculture, the agricultural production capacity, the density of agricultural machinery, the level of agricultural scale, the rate of agricultural disasters, the level of industrialization, and the level of urbanization. The development of agriculture itself is the main driving factor of agricultural ecological efficiency, and the emphasis is changing from mainly on high agricultural productivity to mainly on improvement of agricultural production conditions. The major driving factor of agricultural ecological efficiency in the eastern region is the agriculture development of itself, in the central region the focus of policy support is turned into itself agriculture development, and in the western region, the focus is turned from policy support into the macro-environment.

Key words: agricultural ecological efficiency; time evolution; spatial characteristics; driving factors