Policy Support or Service Provision? Comparative Driving Mechanisms of Farmers' Digital Technology Adoption in China

Digital technologies have profoundly transformed traditional factor allocation and opened new possibilities for improving agricultural resource use efficiency. However, in smallholder-dominated production systems, agricultural digital transformation is not merely a technical issue, but also a matter of institutional and social embedding. In this context, comparing the differential effects of policy support and market-oriented socialized services on farmers’ adoption of digital technologies is critical for understanding the institutional logic underlying technology diffusion. Drawing on the S-O-R framework, this study integrates the Technology Acceptance Model and the Technology Readiness Index to construct a decision-making model of farmers’ digital technology adoption, which is empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that policy support significantly enhances farmers’ adoption intention but has limited impact on actual adoption behavior. In contrast, market-oriented socialized services, although not directly increasing adoption intention, effectively promote adoption behavior. Moreover, the effects of both policy and services are transmitted indirectly through the pathway of technology readiness and technology acceptance, revealing the psychological mechanisms through which external drivers influence farmers’ behavior. Finally, advantage-integrated farmers are more responsive to government support, whereas resource-constrained farmers rely more heavily on socialized services. By comparing policy-driven and service-embedded approaches, this study not only advances theoretical understanding of digital technology diffusion from individual cognition toward institutional embedding, but also provides a contextually adaptive perspective on farmers’ adoption behavior, offering practical guidance for future policy design and service implementation.