The Impact of Rural Population Aging on the Development of Green Agricultural Technology: A Spatial Perspective Study

Promoting the green development of agriculture is an essential path toward modernizing agriculture in China, while the regional aging of the rural population structure poses new challenges to green agricultural development. Based on the spatial error model (SEM) and the perspective of human capital level, this paper uses the SBM-ML index method to construct the level of green agricultural development and empirically analyzes the impact of rural population aging on green agricultural development. The study finds that both an increase in the proportion of the rural elderly population and an increase in the old-age dependency ratio restrain green agricultural development. Additionally, the aging of the rural population has a negative impact on the level of rural human capital. Robustness analysis using replacement weight matrices confirms the reliability of the paper’s conclusions. Therefore, efforts are needed to enhance rural education levels, provide more training opportunities for rural elderly individuals, and promote the dissemination of green agricultural technologies to facilitate rural green development.