Digital rural development and agricultural green total factor productivity: evidence from China

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.