Let Farmers Speak for Themselves: A Configurational Study on Farmers’ Participation in Digital Village Construction

Farmer participation is crucial in the construction of the digital countryside, as it can fully reflect the actual needs of farmers and promote the matching of supply and demand and the sustainable development of digital village construction. This study identified six antecedent conditions affecting the participation behavior of farmers from three dimensions: subjective experience, mobilization tools, and the action arena, which we aimed to use in an analytical framework to explain farmer participation in digital village construction. Necessary condition analysis and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis were used to analyze 30 digital village construction cases in China, which revealed multiple causal relationships affecting farmers’ participation in village construction. No single factor was effective but five configuration paths were identified for farmers to participate effectively in the construction of digital village areas, with certain adaptabilities according to the local development situation that were summarized into three formative modes: producer-, service-, and environment-driven. These findings can be used to improve farmers’ participation in multi-subject coordination, system design, skill training, and integrated digital platform construction. This study found the causal relationship that promotes farmers’ effective participation in digital village construction from a configurational perspective, which is rare in previous studies. This study also contributed to the digital transformation of rural areas and provided a decision-making reference for sustainable village construction.