ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1660992
How Digital Technology Innovation Drives Agricultural Sustainability? A Mechanism Study Based on Green Total Factor Productivity
Provisionally accepted
Qitong Gong*
Weixue Tang- Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China
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Facing environmental pollution challenges in agricultural production, digital technology innovation - serving as the core driver of China's "Digital China" strategy - emerges as a promising new force for promoting agricultural green development. This study utilizes panel data from 30 Chinese provinces (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Tibet) covering 2009 to 2022, employing the SBM-BML model to measure agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) and applying a two-way fixed effects model to examine the impact of digital technology innovation on AGTFP and its underlying mechanisms. The findings demonstrate a significant positive relationship between digital technology innovation and AGTFP. Digital technology innovation enhances AGTFP primarily through optimizing resource allocation. Moderating effect analysis reveals that appropriate environmental regulations can strengthen this positive impact. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the enhancing effect of digital technology innovation is more substantial in coastal regions and areas with higher financial development levels. Additionally, the study finds that digital technology innovation can promote local high-quality economic development and help address wastewater discharge issues by improving AGTFP. These research findings provide both theoretical foundations and practical guidance for China to better advance agricultural green development in the era of digital intelligence.
Keywords: digital technology innovation, agricultural sustainability, Agricultural green total factor productivity, Resource Allocation, environmental regulation
Received: 07 Jul 2025; Accepted: 21 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gong and Tang. 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: Qitong Gong, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China
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