Low-Altitude Economy Empowers the Development of Smart Agriculture: Quantitative Evaluation, Mechanism and Policy Implications

The rapid expansion of the low-altitude economy has created new opportunities for digital transformation in agriculture; however, empirical evidence on its role in advancing smart agriculture remains limited. Using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces (2013–2023), this study constructs multidimensional indices to examine how the low-altitude economy shapes smart agriculture development. It contributes to the literature by systematically introducing the low-altitude economy into the analytical framework of digital agriculture and empirically uncovering its transmission mechanisms, spatial spillovers, and regional heterogeneity. The results indicate that: (1) the development of the low-altitude economy significantly promotes smart agriculture, primarily through improvements in transportation efficiency and the agricultural ecological environment; (2) heterogeneity analysis reveals that this promotional effect is more pronounced in regions with stronger agricultural foundations and higher levels of factor agglomeration; and (3) spatial effect analysis shows that while the low-altitude economy significantly enhances local smart agriculture development, it exerts a certain inhibitory effect on neighboring regions, reflecting differentiated spatial transmission patterns under interregional factor competition.