Beyond digital access: how does digital information complement agricultural production services to promote green technology adoption? Micro-evidence from Jiangxi Province, China

Abstract

In the context of agricultural green transformation, whether digital information can move beyond information provision and promote smallholders’ adoption of green technologies through complementarity with agricultural production services is an important theoretical and practical question. Using survey data from 1,040 rice-farming households in Jiangxi Province, China, this study constructs indicators of digital information, agricultural production services, and the number of core green technologies adopted. A Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) model is used to estimate their individual and interactive effects, supplemented by marginal-effect analysis, a supermodularity test, robustness checks, endogeneity analyses, mechanism tests, and heterogeneity analyses. The results show that (1) both digital information and agricultural production services significantly promote the adoption of core green technologies. In the full model, their coefficients are 0.329 and 0.330, respectively, while the interaction coefficient is 0.702 and significant at the 5% level. (2) Further tests confirm that the marginal effect of agricultural production services increases with the level of digital information, the average cross-partial effect is significantly positive, and the predicted adoption count is highest under the high-digital-information and high-production-services scenario. The supermodularity difference is 0.132, providing further evidence of complementarity. (3) The main findings remain robust to alternative dependent variables, model specifications, sample adjustments, and the use of double machine learning, instrumental variables, and entropy balancing. (4) Mechanism analyses suggest that complementarity promotes green technology adoption by easing labor constraints and improving farmers’ awareness of green policies. (5) Within-group estimates further indicate that the effect is more pronounced among farmers who own agricultural machinery, live in villages with better transportation conditions, and operate larger rice-farming areas. Overall, digital information does not simply substitute for agricultural production services; rather, it strengthens their conversion into actual green technology adoption. These findings support closer integration between digital information platforms and agricultural service systems.