数字乡村发展与农业绿色全要素生产率——来自中国的证据

Abstract

This study investigates how digital rural development influences agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) in China, with particular attention to stage characteristics and regional heterogeneity. Using panel data from 30 provinces from 2012 to 2022, we construct a multidimensional evaluation framework incorporating digital infrastructure, digital service capacity, and the digital development environment. A fixed-effects model is employed to estimate the overall impact, mediation models are used to examine the roles of factor allocation, organizational upgrading, and technology diffusion, and a panel threshold model is applied to identify nonlinear effects. The results show that digital rural development significantly enhances AGTFP, and this finding is robust to alternative measures, sample adjustments, and endogeneity tests. Mechanism analyses reveal that digitalization improves green efficiency by promoting labor mobility, expanding large-scale operations, strengthening cooperative development, and accelerating mechanization and agricultural R&D. However, the positive effect of land transfer remains constrained by institutional frictions, limiting its contribution to green transformation. Threshold analyses indicate that the impact of digital infrastructure becomes stronger once a critical level is surpassed, whereas the marginal effect of digital services weakens at higher stages of development. Regional heterogeneity further shows that the positive effects are most pronounced in eastern provinces and in non-grain-producing regions. Overall, digital rural development functions as a multidimensional driver of agricultural green transformation, offering empirical evidence and policy insights for designing differentiated digitalization strategies that support sustainable agricultural development.

1 Introduction

The rapid expansion of the digital economy in recent years has substantially advanced rural digitalization in China. Nationwide, the targets of “gigabit county connections, 5G coverage in every township, and broadband access in every village” have largely been achieved. By 2024, over 90% of administrative villages had access to 5G networks, and rural internet penetration reached 63.8%. Meanwhile, digital applications—such as online public services, smart agriculture, and digital breeding—have become deeply embedded in rural production and governance. Globally, digital transformation is recognized as a key pathway toward sustainable food systems. From the perspective of the resource-based view, data have emerged as a new strategic resource that enhances productivity through digital technologies. The widespread adoption of these technologies in agriculture provides new opportunities to overcome resource and environmental constraints and to accelerate green transformation (; ).

However, China’s progress in agricultural green development remains limited. The excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides continues to cause non-point source pollution, resulting in a relatively low level of agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) (). This paradox—rapid rural digitalization yet lagging green transformation—raises a critical question: can digital rural development truly empower agricultural green transformation?

Previous studies provide preliminary evidence that rural digitalization enhances agricultural efficiency (; ; ). Yet, most research has focused on measuring the level of digital village development or assessing its direct effects on productivity, with limited exploration of the internal mechanisms and regional heterogeneity. Whether digitalization improves AGTFP depends on several empowerment channels, including the reduction of transaction costs, facilitation of factor mobility, upgrading of organizational structures, and diffusion of green technologies. These mechanisms may vary across development stages and regions due to differences in infrastructure, economic conditions, and environmental pressures.

To address these gaps, this study examines how digital rural development affects AGTFP, whether such effects are stage-dependent or region-specific, and through which mechanisms they operate. Using provincial panel data from 2012 to 2022, we integrate mediation and threshold models to identify key empowerment pathways and nonlinear characteristics. The findings provide theoretical insights and practical implications for promoting sustainable and regionally balanced agricultural digitalization.

2 Literature review and theoretical framework

2.1 Literature review

2.1.1 Digital economy and sectoral development

The digital economy, characterized by data as a key production factor and digital technologies as enabling tools, has been widely recognized as a fundamental driver of efficiency improvement and structural transformation across multiple sectors (; ). Existing studies consistently show that the digital economy reshapes traditional production and governance systems by reducing information asymmetry, optimizing resource allocation, and accelerating technological innovation, thereby exerting broad economic, environmental, and social impacts (; ; ; ). Similar cross-sectoral effects of the digital economy have also been documented in the tourism sector, where digitalization promotes growth through online attention allocation and transportation infrastructure, as well as in rural human settlement improvement, highlighting its role in enhancing living environments beyond purely economic outcomes (; ; ).

From the perspective of environmental sustainability, a growing body of literature demonstrates that digital economy development significantly contributes to green outcomes. Empirical evidence from China indicates that the digital economy reduces carbon emissions and enhances carbon efficiency by promoting green technological innovation and upgrading industrial structure, with these effects exhibiting clear nonlinear characteristics and regional heterogeneity. Similar findings are reported in studies on energy systems, where digitalization alleviates energy poverty primarily through innovation-driven channels, and the positive effects only emerge after surpassing certain development thresholds (). These results highlight that the environmental dividends of the digital economy are neither automatic nor uniform, but depend critically on development stages and structural conditions.

Beyond environmental outcomes, the digital economy has also been shown to exert profound influences on social governance and public service provision. Recent studies focusing on rural China reveal that digital economy development improves public security by increasing non-agricultural employment opportunities and household income, thereby indirectly enhancing social stability (). In the public health domain, interprovincial evidence suggests that the digital economy significantly raises medical and health service levels through improved resource allocation efficiency and coordinated regional development, while generating notable spatial spillover effects (). Together, these findings underscore that the digital economy functions as a systemic force that reshapes factor mobility, institutional performance, and governance capacity across sectors.

Moreover, quasi-natural experimental studies further strengthen the causal interpretation of these relationships. Using the establishment of big data comprehensive pilot zones as an identification strategy, recent research confirms that digital economy development promotes high-quality economic growth through human capital accumulation and green technological innovation, with pronounced heterogeneity across regions, city sizes, and development stages (). This strand of literature emphasizes that the impacts of the digital economy are mediated by internal mechanisms and conditioned by structural environments, rather than operating through simple linear effects.

Overall, the existing evidence suggests that the digital economy is not merely a sector-specific technological upgrade, but a multidimensional development system capable of influencing economic performance, environmental sustainability, and social outcomes through resource reallocation, innovation diffusion, and institutional transformation. These cross-sectoral mechanisms, including resource reallocation, innovation diffusion, and institutional upgrading, are also highly relevant to agriculture, where factor mobility and technology adoption are central to green productivity improvements (; ; ).

2.1.2 Determinants of agricultural green total factor productivity

Agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) has been widely used as a comprehensive indicator to assess the quality and sustainability of agricultural development, as it simultaneously incorporates desirable outputs and undesirable environmental impacts such as carbon emissions and non-point source pollution (; ). A growing body of literature has examined the determinants of AGTFP, indicating that agricultural green productivity is jointly shaped by factor endowments and allocation efficiency, technological progress and diffusion, as well as institutional and environmental conditions.

First, factor endowment structure and allocation efficiency constitute fundamental determinants of AGTFP. Existing studies suggest that labor input quality, capital accumulation, and land use efficiency are closely associated with agricultural green productivity (; ). In particular, distortions in factor allocation and barriers to factor mobility tend to reduce production efficiency while intensifying environmental pressures, thereby constraining improvements in AGTFP (). Optimizing the allocation of labor and capital across regions and sectors has therefore been identified as a critical pathway for enhancing agricultural green productivity.

Second, technological progress and the diffusion of agricultural technologies represent another key driver of AGTFP. Technological innovation not only improves production efficiency but also reduces resource consumption and pollution emissions through cleaner production methods and environmentally friendly input use (). Empirical evidence indicates that green technological innovation, mechanization, and the adoption of sustainable farming practices significantly enhance AGTFP; however, the effectiveness of technological progress depends critically on the speed and scope of technology diffusion, which varies across regions and stages of development (; ).

Third, institutional arrangements, environmental regulations, and external conditions also exert significant influences on AGTFP. Climate change, environmental constraints, and policy interventions affect agricultural green productivity through both direct and indirect channels. For example, adverse climate conditions—such as rising temperatures and increased precipitation variability—have been shown to exert nonlinear and regionally heterogeneous effects on China’s AGTFP (). At the same time, appropriate environmental regulations and agricultural support policies can incentivize cleaner production behavior and stimulate green technological innovation, thereby contributing to improvements in agricultural green productivity (; ).

Overall, the existing literature indicates that AGTFP is the outcome of multiple interacting forces, including factor allocation efficiency, technological progress and diffusion, and institutional and environmental conditions. This body of research provides a solid foundation for examining how new development forces may further influence agricultural green productivity and underscores the importance of exploring the mechanisms through which such influences operate.

2.1.3 Digital rural development and agricultural green total factor productivity

Building on the established determinants of AGTFP discussed above, recent studies have begun to explore digital rural development as a new development force that reshapes these traditional drivers rather than replacing them (; ). As an extension of the digital economy into agriculture and rural areas, digital rural development integrates digital infrastructure, digital services, and supportive institutional environments, thereby transforming agricultural production conditions and rural factor allocation systems.

Existing empirical evidence suggests that digitalization-related factors can significantly enhance AGTFP through multiple channels (; ; ; ; ). In particular, studies on digital inclusive finance show that improved access to digital financial services alleviates farmers’ credit constraints, promotes investment in green technologies, and enhances production efficiency, ultimately contributing to higher AGTFP (). Similarly, recent research demonstrates that digital finance promotes AGTFP indirectly by fostering digital village development, highlighting the mediating role of rural digital infrastructure and service capacity in transmitting digital dividends to agricultural green productivity ().

Beyond financial digitalization, a growing strand of literature emphasizes the importance of comprehensive digital rural development in improving agricultural green productivity. Digital infrastructure, such as broadband networks and information platforms, reduces information asymmetry and transaction costs, thereby facilitating the more efficient allocation of labor, capital, and land across agricultural activities (; ; ). Meanwhile, enhanced digital service capacity improves farmers’ access to market information, technical guidance, and public services, which in turn promotes organizational upgrading and the adoption of environmentally friendly production practices.

Digital rural development also plays a crucial role in accelerating the diffusion of green technologies and knowledge spillovers in agriculture. Through digital platforms and information networks, advanced agricultural technologies and sustainable farming practices can be disseminated more rapidly across regions, shortening the lag between innovation and adoption. This process not only enhances productivity but also mitigates environmental pressures by encouraging cleaner production methods and more efficient input use.

Taken together, existing studies suggest that digital rural development affects AGTFP primarily by reshaping factor allocation, facilitating organizational upgrading, and accelerating the diffusion of green technologies, although the strength and timing of these effects depend on regional development conditions and infrastructure endowments. In regions with insufficient digital infrastructure or limited human capital, the positive impacts of digitalization on agricultural green productivity may be constrained or delayed, implying the presence of nonlinear characteristics and regional heterogeneity.

Despite these contributions, existing studies exhibit several important limitations. First, much of the literature focuses on single dimensions of digitalization, such as digital finance, rather than conceptualizing digital rural development as an integrated system encompassing infrastructure, service capacity, and the broader development environment. Second, the internal mechanisms through which digital rural development influences AGTFP, particularly factor allocation, organizational upgrading, and technology diffusion, remain insufficiently examined. In addition, most existing studies rely on linear specifications and thus fail to capture potential threshold effects or stage-dependent dynamics, which may obscure the conditional nature of digital rural development’s impact on agricultural green productivity. In particular, when digital infrastructure and service capacity remain below critical levels, the enabling effects of digital rural development may not fully materialize. Accordingly, this study conceptualizes digital rural development as a systemic and conditional driver of agricultural green transformation rather than a technological input. By constructing a multidimensional digital rural development index and empirically examining its effects on AGTFP through mechanism analysis, threshold modeling, and regional heterogeneity analysis, this study seeks to extend the existing literature and provide more nuanced evidence on how digital transformation contributes to sustainable agricultural development.

2.2 Theoretical analysis and research hypotheses

2.2.1 Overall effect of digital rural development on agricultural green total factor productivity

Digital rural development—anchored in digital infrastructure, service capacity, and the development environment—facilitates the transformation and upgrading of agricultural production through multidimensional coordination, thereby enhancing agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP). The construction of digital infrastructure enhances information acquisition and transmission efficiency, reduces transaction costs in production and circulation, and improves resource utilization (; ). Enhanced digital service capacity allows farmers easier access to markets and policy resources, strengthening operational flexibility and supporting the transition toward precision and green production (). Meanwhile, a supportive digital development environment—characterized by stable energy supply, efficient transport, and industrial linkages—creates favorable conditions for applying digital tools and disseminating green practices (; ).

H1: Digital rural development significantly enhances agricultural green total factor productivity.

2.2.2 Indirect effects: mediation mechanisms

2.2.2.1 Factor allocation efficiency

Institutional economics posits that transaction costs and information asymmetry hinder the free flow of production factors (). By advancing information infrastructure and e-commerce platforms, digital rural development improves the allocation efficiency of land and labor. The expansion of internet access and digital platforms reduces transaction costs in land transfers (), promotes off-farm employment, and facilitates large-scale operations. Transparent digital information also alleviates asymmetry, improving market matching. Furthermore, digital platforms create new employment and training opportunities, optimizing labor allocation and human capital utilization, thereby enhancing resource efficiency and AGTFP.

H2: Digital rural development indirectly promotes AGTFP by improving the allocation efficiency of key factors such as land and labor.

2.2.2.2 Organizational upgrading

According to collective action theory, the fragmented nature of smallholders hinders coordination in green agricultural production (). The rise of digital platforms fosters collaboration among cooperatives, family farms, agribusinesses, and individual farmers (,; ; ). These new organizational forms improve market access, information sharing, and resource integration while facilitating the collective adoption of green technologies and standardized production practices. Rural e-commerce cooperatives that leverage big data and logistics systems exemplify how digitalization enhances operational efficiency and reduces resource waste. Consequently, organizational upgrading strengthens specialization, fosters economies of scale, and accelerates the adoption of green technologies.

H3: Digital rural development indirectly promotes AGTFP by fostering organizational upgrading and large-scale agricultural operations.

2.2.2.3 Technology diffusion

Innovation diffusion theory emphasizes that the adoption of new technologies depends on effective information channels and social acceptance (). Digital rural development accelerates the dissemination of green and smart agricultural technologies by enhancing connectivity and service systems. Supported by public policies and socialized service platforms, technologies such as IoT-based monitor