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<p>Rural digitalization is widely viewed as an important pathway toward sustainable agricultural development, yet whether it can simultaneously improve food security and environmental sustainability remains unclear. Existing studies often examine productivity gains and environmental outcomes separately, leaving limited understanding of how digitalization reshapes the agricultural food-carbon nexus. To address this gap, this study uses multi-level data from 989 counties and 1,835 farm households to examine the short-run effects of rural digitalization on food security and agricultural carbon outcomes. The analysis links a county-level Digital Village Development index with a household-level digital adoption index and employs fixed-effects and two-stage least squares models. The results show that rural digitalization is significantly associated with higher grain output and lower agricultural carbon emissions, but not with significant improvements in crop-biomass carbon uptake or net carbon footprint. Mechanism analysis suggests that production gains are related to land-use intensification, especially the expansion of double cropping, whereas emission reductions are consistent with labor-saving and lower agrochemical use. Heterogeneity analysis shows that digital infrastructure drives productivity growth, while digital governance and digital life are more closely linked to emission mitigation. This study provides new empirical evidence for better aligning digital village development with sustainable agricultural goals.</p>

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Digital transformation at a cost? Asymmetric effects on food security and the agricultural carbon cycle: evidence from China’s digital village strategy

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月29日

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  • Weilong Gao,
  • Qian Zhang,
  • Ying Peng

摘要

Rural digitalization is widely viewed as an important pathway toward sustainable agricultural development, yet whether it can simultaneously improve food security and environmental sustainability remains unclear. Existing studies often examine productivity gains and environmental outcomes separately, leaving limited understanding of how digitalization reshapes the agricultural food-carbon nexus. To address this gap, this study uses multi-level data from 989 counties and 1,835 farm households to examine the short-run effects of rural digitalization on food security and agricultural carbon outcomes. The analysis links a county-level Digital Village Development index with a household-level digital adoption index and employs fixed-effects and two-stage least squares models. The results show that rural digitalization is significantly associated with higher grain output and lower agricultural carbon emissions, but not with significant improvements in crop-biomass carbon uptake or net carbon footprint. Mechanism analysis suggests that production gains are related to land-use intensification, especially the expansion of double cropping, whereas emission reductions are consistent with labor-saving and lower agrochemical use. Heterogeneity analysis shows that digital infrastructure drives productivity growth, while digital governance and digital life are more closely linked to emission mitigation. This study provides new empirical evidence for better aligning digital village development with sustainable agricultural goals.