ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1531810
This article is part of the Research TopicRegenerative Agriculture and Support in Changing Policy Environments: Farmers’ Rights, Contract Farming, and Navigating towards Sustainable PracticesView all 10 articles
Innovative Ecosystems for Green Agriculture: A Four-Helix + Intermediary Model for Rural Development
Provisionally accepted
Qiqi Chen*
Jun Li- Zhongyuan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, China
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This study investigates the structure and functioning of green agriculture innovation ecosystems within the context of China's rural revitalization, using the soapberry industry in Queshan County as a case. It develops and validates a "Four-Helix + Intermediary" collaborative innovation model, comprising government agencies, universities, enterprises, farmers, and intermediary institutions such as cooperatives. This model enhances stakeholder synergy, promotes technological diffusion, and strengthens institutional coordination. Empirical findings show that the overall synergy level among actors reached 0.6821, indicating a relatively coordinated state. However, disparities exist among various indicators, with high coordination observed in government-business investments and farmer satisfaction, while university-enterprise collaboration and farmer labor input remain weak points. The study concludes that transforming traditional collaboration approaches and institutionalizing intermediary roles are essential for sustainable agricultural development. The proposed model provides a replicable framework for fostering innovation in other agricultural or rural contexts and offers policy insights for advancing rural revitalization through green, inclusive, and systemic innovation.
Keywords: Cooperative innovation, Green Agriculture, Innovation ecosystem, Four-Helix + Intermediary Institutions, Rural revitalization, Collaborative innovation
Received: 21 Nov 2024; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qiqi Chen, Zhongyuan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, China
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