0023-6152

AA00697606

7340481

This study explores the relationship between China’s food imports and the ecological environment (mainly agricultural carbon emissions) of its trading partners. Using panel data from 15 major food trading partners from 2001 to 2021, we apply the Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS) method to examine the relationship between China’s food imports and agricultural carbon emissions of trading partners. The results indicate that the relationship supports the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis, exhibiting an inverted U–shape. This means that as food trade openness increases, trading partners’ ecological environment first deteriorates and then improves after crossing a turning point. We also find that the EKC shape exhibits national and product heterogeneity. The EKC is inverted U–shaped for high–income countries and U–shaped for low–income countries. It is inverted U–shaped for soybean imports and U–shaped for corn imports. Based on 2021 data, expanding China’s soybean imports from the United States, Brazil, and increasing corn imports from Brazil, Uruguay, Russia, the United States, and Myanmar are beneficial for improving the ecological environment of these countries. Furthermore, we discover that food trade impacts trading partners’ ecological environment through production scale, industrial structure, and technological progress, with production scale being the main path for the inverted U–shaped curve. Increasing trade openness has a positive U–shaped impact on the environment through technological and structural effects, but not enough to offset the negative scale effects. Our study contributes by confirming the EKC relationship and turning point between food trade and ecological environment, clarifying its national and product heterogeneity, and identifying the main impact channels. The findings have policy implications for optimizing China’s food import structure and promoting sustainable trade and development.