Impact of Digital Literacy on Farmers’ Adoption Behaviors of Green Production Technologies

The application of digital technology offers new opportunities to promote the green transformation and upgrading of agriculture. Farmers’ digital literacy, as a critical link between digital technology and agricultural green development, significantly influences their production decisions. Whether digital literacy serves as an enabling factor driving farmers’ adoption of agricultural green production technologies warrants further exploration. This paper uses the entropy method to measure farmers’ digital literacy levels and employs a Probit model for empirical analysis of survey data from 643 farmers in Shandong and Shaanxi provinces, examining how farmers’ digital literacy influences their adoption of green production technologies. The baseline regression result indicates that digital literacy can significantly increase farmers’ adoption of green production technologies. A mechanism analysis reveals that enhanced farmers’ digital literacy promotes the adoption of green production technologies through three pathways: enhancing farmers’ risk perception, expanding farmers’ digital social capital, and strengthening the effectiveness of technology promotion. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that improved digital literacy significantly enhances the adoption of four technologies—water-saving irrigation, pest control, pollution-free pesticide, and straw return to fields—and exerts a stronger impact on large-scale and middle-generation farmers. Accordingly, this study suggests improving digital village infrastructure, enhancing farmers’ digital literacy comprehensively, and formulating differentiated extension policies.