ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Can digital literacy reduce the intensity of pesticide application by farmers in the context of labor aging?
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
- 2King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand
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Paying attention to pesticide application is of great practical significance for ensuring food security while achieving a green transition in agriculture. Therefore, based on cross-sectional data from 10 provinces in China in 2020, this study uses the OLS method to analyze the impact of digital literacy on the intensity of pesticide application by farmers in the context of an aging workforce and its mechanism of action, and draws the following conclusions: First, digital literacy reduces the intensity of pesticide application by farmers, and population aging has a negative regulatory effect. Second, digital literacy reduces the intensity of pesticide application by promoting the purchase of agricultural insurance. Finally, the "pesticide reduction" effect of digital literacy is higher in high-income areas than in low-income areas. The inhibitory effect of digital literacy on the intensity of pesticide application by farmers is only significant in large sample groups and western regions. Digital literacy has the greatest inhibitory effect on disease prevention drugs, followed by insecticides, and the least inhibitory effect on herbicides. Based on the above conclusions, in order to achieve efficient pesticide application, policymakers should focus on improving the digital literacy of farmers, paying particular attention to elderly farmers and formulating differentiated training policies.
Keywords: Digital Literacy, intensity of pesticide application, Labor aging, OLS method, farmer
Received: 27 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Wu and Luo. 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: Xin Luo
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