Mapping knowledge domains of China’s agricultural technology diffusion research based on CiteSpace

It is an important issue for agricultural technology diffusion research filed to analyze and show the research hotspot，the core of author groups，major research institutions and important scholarly journals. The domestic scholars' research on diffusion of agricultural technology was dug to comb and summarize the characteristics and direction of agricultural technology diffusion research in China. Taking 1405 articles related to agricultural technology diffusion which are retrieved form“ China National Knowledge Infrastructure” as subjects，we drew maps of the research hotspot，the core of author groups，major research institutions and important scholarly journals by CiteSpace，a visual software for literature analysis. The results reveal that，firstly，the basic theory of current domestic agricultural technology diffusion research has been constructed，but the research activity is decreasing year by year，the research field is more concentrated and the frontier has fewer branches. Secondly，the study of China’ agricultural technology diffusion mainly focuses on agro-technical popularization，agricultural technology， promotion system，etc. Thirdly，Jiang He-ping，Li Tong-sheng，Gao Qi-jie，Hu Rui-fa，Shen Hong-fang are the top five prolific authors in agricultural technology diffusion research；China Agricultural University，Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences，Nanjing Agricultural University，Hua-zhong Agricultural University，Northwest A&F University，are the main prolific intuitions. At last，the journal published the most of articles about agricultural technology diffusion is“ Agricultural Economy”，while“ World Agriculture”，“Journal of Agrotechnical Economics” are the main core journals of agricultural technology diffusion research. But at the same time，it is found that the content of existing research content is single，mainly concentrates in the field of agricultural economics，while the cross-disciplinary research is not obvious，and the theoretical innovation is insufficient. In the context of agricultural supply-side reform，the new requirements on agricultural technology diffusion are to be paid attention.