From complexity to strength: How digital transformation and innovation enhances agricultural supply chain resilience?

Food security has become an increasingly critical issue as the risk of disruptions to food supply chains has surged because of geopolitical conflicts and environmental factors. To reach Sustainable Development Goal 2 and build an agricultural powerhouse, agricultural supply chains must be made more resilient. Digital transformation has emerged as a forward-looking strategy rooted in technological foresight, offering new tools to address complex systemic challenges. This study investigates the impact of digital transformation in agricultural enterprises on supply chain resilience and explores the underlying mechanisms, drawing on firm-level data from listed agricultural companies in China. The findings demonstrate that digital transformation significantly enhances supply chain resilience in agribusinesses, primarily through improvements in corporate transparency, supply chain configuration, and outcome transformation capabilities. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that this positive effect is more pronounced in regions with higher levels of marketization, as well as among mature enterprises and those characterized by stronger internal control systems. By elucidating the mechanisms and contextual conditions through which digital transformation influences supply chain resilience, this study offers new empirical evidence and enriches the theoretical understanding of digitalization in the agricultural sector. It seeks to identify effective pathways for strengthening the resilience of agricultural supply chains, to accelerate the investment in and application of digital technologies, safeguarding food security, and guiding the agricultural sector toward a more efficient, modern, and sustainable transformation.