Why can digital technology empower the high-quality development of farmer cooperatives?

As a vital organizational form connecting poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, farmers’ cooperatives have rapidly expanded in number, yet their development quality remains insufficient. Based on micro-survey data from 319 crop-producing farmers’ cooperatives in Heilongjiang Province, this study comprehensively considers cooperative scale, type, and operational characteristics to measure their levels of digital technology use and high-quality development, and to examine the impact effects and underlying mechanisms of digital technology. The results show that: 1) the use of digital technology significantly promotes the high-quality development of farmers’ cooperatives, particularly in improving standardization and service capabilities, with more significant effects observed in large-scale and operation-oriented cooperatives; 2) digital technology promotes high-quality development mainly by enhancing resource integration capacity and information-sharing efficiency, thereby exerting a positive transmission effect; 3) operational tenure, fixed asset scale, financial accessibility, and government support all have significant impacts on high-quality development. Based on these findings, the paper proposes policy recommendations from the perspectives of technological empowerment, mechanism construction, and policy coordination to comprehensively enhance the role of digital technology in promoting the high-quality development of farmers’ cooperatives.