Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Farmers’ Green Technology Adoption From The Perspective Of Digital Empowerment

Green production technology is an important scientific and technological support for the transformation of agricultural green development and the high quality development of agriculture.Promoting the adoption of green technology by farmers is of great significance for implementing the national strategy of "storing grain in the land,storing grain in technology",improving agricultural and rural environment,and ensuring food and food safety.Since the 18 th CPC National Congress,a series of policy documents have been issued to support the green and sustainable development of agriculture,including the National Plan for Sustainable Agricultural Development(2015-2030),Technical Guidelines for Green Agricultural Development(2018-2030),and Implementation Opinions on Fighting the Battle against Non-point Agricultural Pollution.It provides important policy support for farmers to adopt green technology.At the same time,based on the perspective of traditional economics,a large number of scholars have carried out a systematic and comprehensive discussion on the influencing mechanism of farmers’ green technology adoption behavior,providing beneficial theoretical guidance for farmers’ green technology adoption.However,from the perspective of practice,because of the green production technology and the nature of small farmer,the overall green technology adoption level of Chinese farmer is still low.On the one hand,agricultural green production technology has a certain complexity and risk,farmers adopt green production technology face a high threshold of knowledge and skills.On the other hand,the farmers are mainly scattered in small scale,and the overall level of human capital is low.Its willingness and ability to learn,acquire and apply agricultural green production technology are relatively insufficient,so it is difficult to widely adopt green technology.At present,the digital economy based on digital technology has brought extensive,sustained and profound changes to the traditional economic system by reshaping various fields and relationships of social and economic activities.The integrated development of digital economy and different fields has gradually become a big logic and trend of the new era.There is no doubt that with the gradual integration of digital economy and agricultural industry,the green transformation of agriculture will surely glow with new digital vitality.In view of this,under the background of the failure of traditional promotion mechanism of green production technology and the general weakness of farmers’ adoption of green technology,it is theoretically feasible and practical urgent to re-examine farmers’ adoption of green technology from the perspective of digital economy theory.So,in the process of reshaping the agricultural industry,can the digital economy based on digital technology have a transformative effect on the way of thinking and behavior of farmers,so as to enable farmers to adopt green technologies? From the perspective of digital empowerment,what is the influence mechanism of farmers’ green technology adoption behavior? Does the adoption of green production technology by farmers have an economic effect? What are the characteristics of this economic effect under different digital enabling conditions?In order to further explore the above problems,based on 608 micro-survey data of farmers in major rice producing areas of Sichuan Province,this study conducted a systematic study on the influencing mechanism of farmers’ green technology adoption from the perspective of digital empowerment.The research mainly covers the following aspects: First,based on the theory of digital economy,the theory of farmer behavior,the theory of agricultural technology diffusion and the theory of agricultural green development,the theoretical mechanism of the influence of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption is systematically discussed,and the theoretical analysis framework of "digital empowerment-farmers’ green technology adoption-economic effect" is built.Secondly,by using macro-statistical data and relevant data,the process of agricultural green development was summarized from the macroscopic perspective,and the basic characteristics of green technology adoption of farmers in different stages were summarized.Then,the personal characteristics,family characteristics and environmental characteristics of sample farmers were systematically expounded based on the micro-survey data,and the status quo of green technology adoption of sample farmers was revealed.Thirdly,based on the micro-survey data,OLS model,Ordered probit model,governing equation method and propensity score matching method were combined to empirically test the impact of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption,and the heterogeneity of the impact of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption was discussed from three aspects: green technology category,economic region and farmer group.Fourthly,the mediation effect test model was used to empirically test the effect mechanism of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption from two aspects: farmers’ cognition of green technology adoption and regional soft environment.Fifth,the endogenous transformation model was used to test the cost-saving and income-increasing effect of green technology adoption by farmers,and the OLS model and quantile regression model were used to explore the heterogeneity of the economic effect from the perspective of digital empowerment.Sixth,the case data are coded step by step by step by using programmed grounded theory,and the basic connotation and implementation path of green technology adoption enabled by digital technology for farmers are summarized.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The depth and breadth of the adoption of green agricultural technology of farmers are expanding continuously,and the agricultural green development enters a new period of optimization and upgrading.At the macro level,the green agricultural development has experienced a long-term process of germination,formation and exploration.Farmers adopt green agricultural technology channels,types,scope and scale gradually increase,and our agricultural green development enters the optimization and upgrading stage.However,subject to the "information dilemma",there are still a large number of farmers lack the willingness and ability to adopt green agricultural technology,which is not conducive to our agricultural further green development transformation.From the micro level,the overall environment for green agricultural technology adoption in the sample region is poor,and there are significant differences in the sample farmers’ cognition and adoption of various green agricultural technologies,so the promotion and application of green agricultural technologies has a long way to go.(2)Digital empowerment has a significant positive impact on farmers’ green technology adoption,and the impact is heterogeneous among different green technology categories,economic regions and farmers’ groups.The baseline regression results show that compared with households without digital empowerment,the adoption of green technologies by digital empowered households is significantly improved.This conclusion remains valid after further consideration of endogeneity.The regression results after replacing the core independent variable with the degree of digital empowerment show that the influence of the degree of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption is significantly positive at the level of 1%,indicating that the degree of digital empowerment is highly positively correlated with farmers’ green technology adoption.The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the impact of digital empowerment on green technology adoption by farmers is significantly different in different green technology categories,economic regions and household groups.(3)Recognition of green technology adoption and regional soft environment are important channels for digital empowerment to influence farmers’ green technology adoption.The results of mediating effect test show that,in the process of the influence of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption,farmers’ green technology adoption cognition and regional soft environment both play a significant mediating role.Specifically,on the one hand,digital technology can help enhance farmers’ cognition of benefit,risk and ease of use in green technology adoption,and thus help farmers make better behavioral decisions in green technology adoption.On the other hand,digital technology can help improve the social environment,policy environment and market environment of farmers’ green technology adoption,so as to enhance their enthusiasm and promote their green technology adoption.(4)From the perspective of digital empowerment,farmers’ green technology adoption has significant economic effects.The regression results of endogenous transformation model show that farmers who adopt green technologies will significantly reduce their planting income and increase their planting cost in the "counterfactual" scenario without adopting green agricultural technologies,while farmers who do not adopt green agricultural technologies will significantly increase their planting income and decrease their planting cost in the "counterfactual" scenario.Further quantile regression results show that compared with non-digital empowered households,digital empowered households adopt green agricultural technologies to increase income and save costs more obviously.(5)The enabling role of digital technology for farmers’ green technology adoption is mainly embodied in three aspects: subject empowerment,process empowerment and outcome empowerment.Through the step-by-step coding of programmed grounded theory,a logical thread of "digital technology enables farmers to adopt green technology" can be obtained,that is,under the linkage and matching of digital infrastructure,farmers’ capital endowment and practical needs,farmers can share information,technology,knowledge,agricultural materials,agricultural machinery and agricultural products through digital equipment and platforms.So as to enhance farmers’ awareness of green technology adoption,improve regional soft environment,and finally promote farmers’ green technology adoption.It can be found that subject empowerment,process empowerment and outcome empowerment are the basic connotation of green technology adoption by digitally empowered farmers.It can be realized by strengthening the construction of digital "new infrastructure" and the cultivation of digital "new farmers",accelerating the accurate identification and response to farmers’ real needs,and promoting the sharing of agricultural information and materials.Based on the above research conclusions,this study mainly draws the following three levels of policy enlightenment: first,strengthen the government’s guidance and support,promote the integrated development of digital economy and green agricultural industry;Second,we should speed up the cultivation of digital "new farmers" and improve the digital literacy of farmers.Third,we should promote the professional development of agricultural digital platform enterprises and realize the effective supply of digital technology.Compared with the existing literature,the main innovations of this study are:(1)From the perspective of digital empowerment,this paper probes into the new mechanism and new path of farmers’ green technology adoption.The present research probes into farmers’ green technology adoption from the perspective of traditional economics,which promotes Chinese farmers’ green technology adoption to a certain extent.However,limited to farmers’ own ability and attributes such as difficult to obtain,high cost and high risk of green agricultural technology,farmers in our country are facing obstacles of insufficient ability and motivation in green technology adoption.Based on the traditional economic theory,farmers’ incentive measures for green technology adoption are weak,which urgently needs to find a breakthrough to promote green technology adoption from the new perspective.In order to realize the green transformation of Chinese agriculture smoothly.Based on the trend of deep integration of the digital economy and agricultural industry in our country,and combined with the theory of digital economy,this study tries to crack the new mechanism of farmer household’s weak green technology adoption from two paths: "digital enablement--cognition of green technology adoption" and "digital enablement--regional soft environment--green technology adoption".It provides a new way to promote the adoption of green technology by farmers and is innovative in research perspective.(2)The theoretical analysis framework of "digital empowerment-farmers’ green technology adoption-economic effect" is built.Existing studies on digital empowerment mainly focus on the manufacturing and service industries,but rarely involve agriculture.There is still a lack of research on the impact of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption.In this study,digital empowerment,farmers’ green technology adoption and its economic effects were integrated into the same analytical framework,and the influence mechanism of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption was elaborated,as well as the economic effects of farmers’ green technology adoption from the perspective of digital empowerment.The multi-case qualitative analysis method was adopted.From the practical level,the influence mechanism and implementation path of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption are explored,which is verified with the empirical results.The theory and practice of digital empowerment and farmers’ green technology adoption are expanded,and the research content is innovative to some extent.(3)The influence of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.On the one hand,based on the micro survey data,this study comprehensively used a variety of measurement methods,such as ordinary least square method,Ordered Probit model,control equation method,propensity score matching method,intermediary effect model,endogenous transformation model,quantile regression,and so on,to empirically test the influence mechanism of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption.The economic effects of green technology adoption by farmers under the perspective of digital empowerment are analyzed.On the other hand,based on the practical case data of farmers’ green technology adoption,this study further discusses the basic connotation and implementation path of digital technology enabling farmers’ green technology adoption from a qualitative perspective through the program-based theory analysis method.The combination of traditional econometric analysis method and grounded theory analysis is helpful to reveal the influence of digital empowerment on farmers’ green technology adoption in a more comprehensive and systematic way,which is innovative in the application of research methods.