<p>In the process of agricultural development, the sector is confronted with two major social characteristics: ageing population and growing markets, as well as the technical characteristic of the rapid development of digital technology. The drive to reduce carbon emissions has become a key issue in this context. Utilizing panel data from Chinese provinces spanning 2010 to 2022, this study establishes a thorough index system for assessing digital technology and analyzes the influence of rural digitalization in China on the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions. The analysis reveals that, across the board, digital technology is effective in lowering the intensity of carbon emissions in agriculture, a conclusion that holds true even after undergoing multiple robustness and endogeneity examinations. The heterogeneity results suggest that the influence of digital technologies on agricultural carbon intensity varies substantially across different stages of economic development and environmental policy regimes. From the perspective of the mechanism of action, the aging of the rural population and marketization have a regulatory effect on the use of digital technology to reduce the intensity of agricultural carbon emissions. Notably, marketization exhibits a ‘U’-shaped regulatory influence, and once the level of marketization surpasses a certain threshold (5.9985), the efficacy of market mechanisms is substantially enhanced, catalyzing a shift in agricultural production from ‘quantitative change’ to ‘qualitative change.’ This research carries far-reaching policy implications, underscoring that the low-carbon agriculture in developing nations must consider not only the benefits of digitalization and marketization but also the demographic shift towards an aging population.</p>