Abstract: Agroecology serves as a pivotal approach to promoting agricultural green transformation and realizing rural revitalization in the context of sustainable development. As the primary vehicle for the practical implementation and innovative demonstration of agroecology in China, ecological farms hold significant theoretical and practical value in exploring pathways toward high-performance development. This study focused on 58 national and provincial-level ecological farms in Hebei Province, encompassing both crop-based and integrated crop-livestock operations. By employing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), this study constructed a comprehensive performance evaluation indicator system to capture the multidimensional nature of ecological farm development. Using cross-sectional data collected from field investigations in 2022, the Super-SBM model incorporating undesirable outputs was applied to measure the development performance of the farms. Subsequently, a configurational perspective was adopted, and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was employed to reveal the pathways through which various factors synergistically contribute to high-performance ecological farms, focusing on the interplay among four dimensions: resource endowments, production and operations, market conditions, and tri-party support. The findings of this study are threefold. First, with a mean score of 1.088 indicating DEA efficiency attainment in most cases, the findings substantiate that ecological farms successfully balance dual sustainability objectives where operational performance disparities nevertheless remain observable. Second, four distinct pathways leading to high-performance ecological farms were identified: (1) the resource synergy pathway prioritizes strategic coordination of land-labor allocations through policy-supported optimization; (2) the vertical integration pathway centers on cultivating premium niche products while establishing closed-loop value chains from production to distribution; (3) the industrial convergence pathway orchestrates cross-sector convergence by interlinking primary production with processing and experiential tourism sectors; (4) the tech-market synergy pathway leverages smart agricultural technologies alongside multi-channel marketing architectures to maximize market penetration. Third, the study identified three constraining pathways for underperforming farms. These include the eco-overemphasis pathway, where an excessive focus on ecological goals undermines economic viability; the resource misallocation pathway, characterized by inefficient use of available resources and lack of market responsiveness; and the factor bottlenecks pathway, where limitations in land, labor, or capital restrict farm development. Based on these findings, the study provided actionable recommendations: Ecological farms should prioritize strengthening resource integration and efficiency through targeted support in areas such as financial subsidies, technology promotion, and market development. Moreover, a dynamic entry-exit mechanism for ecological farms should be established to stimulate internal vitality. Additionally, policymakers are also encouraged to promote multi-industry integration and innovation to enhance the self-sustaining capacities and achieve long-term sustainable development without over-reliance on external support.