COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1695589
How does information technology enhance the agricultural resilience: The practice of digital inclusive finance in China
Provisionally accepted
- Wuchang University of Technology, Wuhan, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Enhancing industrial resilience is the key to achieving sustainable growth in the agricultural economy. The rapid development of information technology nowadays provides innovative solutions for stabilizing agricultural production and supply chains. Methods: Based on panel data from 270 Chinese cities from 2012 to 2023, this study employed a series of econometric methods, such as two-way fixed effects, two-stage least squares, threshold models, and spatial Durbin models, to analyze the impact of information technology advancements represented by digital inclusive finance on the agricultural economy. Results: The results of data analysis show that digital inclusive finance has significantly enhanced the agricultural resilience (AR). This positive effect still holds true after robustness tests and the elimination of endogeneity issues. However, this promoting effect is not linear but shows a threshold effect that first declines and then rises. In other words, there is a clear U-shaped relationship in the impact of digital inclusive finance on the AR The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that it can present a significant positive effect in different regions, but the effect is more intense in the eastern region. The results of the spatial Durbin model show that this positive effect has a spatial spillover effect. Digital inclusive finance will also have a technological spillover effect on neighboring regions through information platforms, economic exchanges and trade transportation channels. The results of the mechanism analysis show that entrepreneurial activity is a very important mediating variable. Discussion: This study takes China's digital inclusive finance practice as a specific analytical perspective, revealing the positive role of information technology progress on the agricultural economy. Our findings contribute to the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2.
Keywords: Digital inclusive finance, entrepreneurial activity, agricultural economic resilience, Information Technology, Spatial spillover effect, Credit constraint
Received: 30 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wan, Lu, Wang, Zhan and Wang. 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: Wei Lu, 120160587@wut.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.