Digital Technology Empowering Agricultural Green Transformation and Low-Carbon Development in China

Under the coordinated implementation of the “dual carbon” goals and digital rural development strategy, digital technology has become a critical support for solving key problems in agricultural carbon reduction and advancing the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture. Based on panel data from 31 provincial-level regions in China from 2010 to 2023, this study uses the fixed-effect model, mediating the effect model and threshold effect model to systematically examine the impact and transmission mechanism of digital technology on agricultural carbon emission intensity. The results show that: (1) Digital technology markedly lowers agricultural carbon emission intensity, and this conclusion remains steady after endogeneity correction and robustness checks. (2) Digital technology reduces emissions through two core channels: enhancing environmental regulation to constrain high-carbon behaviors via precise monitoring, and improving agricultural socialized services to promote intensive production and lower the adoption threshold of low-carbon technologies. (3) The emission reduction effect of digital technology exhibits a threshold characteristic related to agricultural industrial agglomeration, with the marginal effect of emission reduction showing an increasing trend as the agglomeration level rises. (4) The carbon reduction effect of digital technology shows obvious heterogeneity across grain production functional zones. The inhibitory effect is significant in major grain-producing areas and grain production–consumption balance areas, but not significant in major grain-consuming areas. (5) The carbon reduction effect also presents heterogeneity under different topographic relief conditions. The effect is significant in low-relief areas but not significant in high-relief areas, because complex terrain restricts the construction of digital infrastructure and large-scale application of digital technologies, which further reflects the regulatory role of natural geographical conditions. Accordingly, this paper proposes to strengthen the empowering role of digital technology in the green transformation of agriculture, attach importance to regional coordination and differentiated policy design, and comprehensively improve the capacity of agricultural carbon emission reduction and sequestration. Therefore, it is imperative to strengthen the enabling role of digital technology in the green transformation of agriculture, attach importance to regional coordination and differentiated policy design, and comprehensively enhance the capacity of agriculture for carbon emission reduction, sequestration and sustainable development.