Does Farmland Transfer Promote Digital Agriculture?—Based on Panel Data from 30 Provinces in China

To achieve agricultural modernization, agricultural land must be operated on a large scale. The primary means of encouraging massive operations is through the conveyance of farmland. This is crucial for advancing China’s digital farming. In this article, the degree of digital farming growth is evaluated via the entropy value approach, the impact of farmland transfer on digital agricultural development is analyzed via fixed effects and mediating effects, and the mediating role of resource allocation in farming land transfer to advance digital agriculture growth is investigated. It has been found that agrarian land transfer can effectively stimulate the growth of digital farming. From the mediating effect, farmland transfer fosters the advancement of digital agriculture by transferring farm labor and increasing the input of digital capital. According to heterogeneity analysis, the impact of agricultural land transfer on advancing digital agriculture is more pronounced in eastern and central China. Relevant countermeasures are proposed to enhance the farmland transfer system to promote the large-scale operation of digital agriculture, to increase the input of digital capital to support the growth and construction of digital agriculture, and to improve the regional talent flow mechanism and technological innovation environment to attract from and retain technical talent in digital agriculture.