The impacts and mechanisms of the digital economy on the resilience of the agricultural industry chain

Enhancing the resilience of the agricultural industry chain in a comprehensive and sustained manner is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving the goal of building a strong agricultural nation. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China (excluding Xizang, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) from 2013 to 2023, this paper constructs measurements of the digital economy and agricultural industry chain resilience, and employs the two-way fixed effects models, mediation analysis, and difference-in-differences (DID) models to empirically examine the impacts and underlying mechanisms of the digital economy on agricultural industry chain resilience. Results reveal that: 1) the digital economy exerts a significant and robust positive effect on the resilience of the agricultural industry chain, which remains valid under various robustness checks; 2) mechanism analysis indicates that the digital economy enhances resilience indirectly by optimizing the allocation of innovation factors, promoting agricultural industrial agglomeration, and facilitating industrial structure upgrading; and 3) heterogeneity analysis shows clear regional and developmental phase differences, with the resilience-enhancing effect of the digital economy being more pronounced in major grain-producing and major grain-consuming areas, as well as during stages of deep integration between digital and real economies. Based on these findings, the study recommends a coordinated approach that advances digital infrastructure development, accelerating the construction of an innovation-driven, factor-aggregated, and fully upgraded agricultural industry chain, and leverages regional comparative advantages to fully unlock the empowering potential of the digital economy in strengthening agricultural industry chain resilience.