Digital Economy Participation and Farm Expansion: Evidence from Farmland Rental Market Entry and Operated Farmland Area in China’s Major Grain-Producing Areas

Using survey data from 1025 farm households in Anhui, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong Provinces, this study examines whether farmers’ participation in digitally enabled agricultural activities is associated with farm expansion in China’s major grain-producing areas. Digital economy participation is measured across four stages of the agricultural value chain: procurement, production, supply and marketing, and finance. Farm expansion is assessed using two analytically parallel outcomes: entry into the farmland rental market and log operated farmland area. A double/debiased machine learning framework flexibly adjusts for observed household, local, and county-level covariates and potentially nonlinear relationships. Digital economy participation is positively associated with both outcomes, and the results remain qualitatively robust across alternative index weights, parametric benchmarks, county fixed effects, learning algorithms, and supplementary instrumental-variable specifications. Channel analyses show that digital participation is positively associated with information acquisition, market access, and credit accessibility; the sequential results are consistent with information acquisition supporting market access and credit accessibility. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that household capabilities are more closely related to differences in farmland rental market entry, whereas local labor and mechanization conditions are more relevant to realized operational expansion. These findings clarify the role and limitations of agricultural digital participation in household land adjustment and provide evidence for improving digital and land-related services in China’s major grain-producing regions.