Abstract:
As a key driver of transformation in agricultural production methods and the reshaping of the agricultural value chain, digital agriculture plays a significant role in enhancing the international competitiveness of agricultural products. This paper aims to systematically examine the impact of digital agriculture’s development on the international competitiveness of agricultural products and its underlying mechanisms, thereby providing a theoretical basis for promoting the upgrading of the agricultural export structure towards higher technological complexity. Based on panel data from 2008 to 2020 covering 31 provinces in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan), an indicator system for the development level of digital agriculture was constructed and comprehensively measured using the entropy weighting method. On this basis, an empirical analysis was conducted using a two-way fixed-effects model. The results indicate that digital agriculture can significantly enhance the international competitiveness of agricultural products, and these conclusions remain valid following a series of robustness tests and endogeneity treatments. Mechanism analysis reveals that digital agriculture exerts its influence primarily through three pathways: promoting the upgrading of industrial structure, reducing the fragmentation of rural finance, and enhancing the quality and safety of agricultural products. Heterogeneity tests further indicate that this impact varies significantly across different levels of economic development, terrain undulation, and production area types, with the promotional effects being more pronounced in regions with medium levels of economic development, low terrain undulation, and non-staple grain production areas. Consequently, efforts should be made to further strengthen the development of digital agriculture infrastructure, promote its coordinated development with industry, finance and quality assurance systems, implement differentiated development strategies and improve supporting safeguard mechanisms. This will fully unleash the potential of data as a factor of production, optimise the efficiency of resource allocation, and thereby continuously enhance the international competitiveness of agricultural products.