The impact of the digital economy on agricultural green development and spatial spillover effects

The transition toward greener agricultural production increasingly depends on the effective integration of digital technologies into rural production and service systems. Using a balanced panel covering 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2013 to 2024, this study evaluates the relationship between digital-economy development and agricultural green development (AGD). The two multidimensional indices are calculated through the entropy-weighting method. The empirical analysis proceeds through province and year fixed effects, a mediation framework, threshold estimation, and a spatial Durbin specification. The results show that higher digital-economy development is associated with a significant improvement in AGD. Agricultural technology innovation constitutes a transmission channel and accounts for 12.67% of the estimated effect. The relationship is also conditional on rural human capital: after rural human capital crosses the estimated threshold, the positive association becomes noticeably stronger. Regional estimates reveal substantial heterogeneity, with the eastern provinces exhibiting a larger effect than the central and western regions. Spatial decomposition further indicates that the influence of digital development extends beyond provincial boundaries, and the estimated spillover effect is greater than the within-province direct effect. Taken together, the findings suggest that digital transformation in agriculture depends not only on technological infrastructure but also on local absorptive capacity and cross-regional linkages. The results therefore highlight the importance of strengthening rural human capital, agricultural technology diffusion, and interregional cooperation in the process of agricultural green transformation.