数字经济与实体经济融合对中国农业新质生产力的影响——基于13个粮食主产区的实证

1. Introduction

The current process of agricultural modernization is accelerating, and the new technological and industrial revolutions are mutually reinforcing. These developments place higher demands on high-quality agricultural laborers, labor materials, and labor objects. Traditional agricultural productivity can no longer meet the strategic requirements for building a strong agricultural nation [1]. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore breakthrough paths based on the formation laws of new quality productive forces. The “digital–real integration” examined in this study refers to the process of deep integration between digital technologies and the real economy, while “new quality productive forces” refers to an advanced form of productive forces driven by scientific and technological innovation. Together, they constitute the theoretical framework and practical pathway for contemporary agricultural transformation and upgrading. The former serves as the means, while the latter represents the objective. According to general principles, human practices in transforming nature are the fundamental driving force for the formation of new quality productive forces, and changes in production relations are the key opportunity for qualitative transformation of productivity. Digital–Real integration, through cultivating new development momentum and reshaping new production relations, serves as a critical driver for the formation of new quality productive forces [2]. In response to the challenges of climate change, resource constraints, and food security, major economies worldwide regard digital technologies as the core driving force for agricultural transformation. The European Union’s “Digital Agriculture Strategy,” the United States’ “Precision Agriculture Initiative,” and Japan’s “Smart Agriculture Promotion Policy” all reflect the international consensus on empowering agricultural transformation through digital technologies. In the 2025 Central Document No. 1, the concept of “agricultural new quality productive forces” is introduced for the first time, and General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of “promoting the deep integration of digital technology with the real economy to empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries”; this provides clear guidance for the Chinese-style agricultural modernization path. In the agricultural field, the deep integration of digital and real economies, with technology resource sharing as the link [3], achieves efficient circulation and sharing of new production factors such as technology, data, and knowledge within the industrial chain through digital infrastructure like big data platforms, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence. This greatly cultivates new development momentum for agriculture, enhances the skills of laborers, innovates labor materials, and expands labor objects, thus strengthening the material foundation for new quality productive forces. On the other hand, this deep integration breaks traditional agricultural organizational methods and production modes, reshapes agricultural production relations, and gives rise to new business models such as smart farms, cloud-based cooperatives, and direct connection models for order agriculture. These developments provide important institutional foundations and environmental conditions for the “qualitative” leap in agricultural productivity. Therefore, promoting deep integration of the digital and real economies is not only an inherent requirement following the evolution laws of new quality productive forces but also a strategic measure to break through the bottlenecks of agricultural development and accelerate the construction of a strong agricultural nation.

China’s main grain-producing regions, as the core strategic areas for ensuring national food security, are currently facing deep structural contradictions such as low development quality and efficiency, and delayed transformation and upgrading. Coordinating the scientific protection and sustainable development of agricultural resources in these major grain-producing areas is not only an urgent need to address current challenges but also an inevitable choice to obey the laws of modern agricultural evolution. Cultivating and strengthening agricultural new quality productive forces has become the core driving force for achieving leapfrog development in agriculture and rural economic and social progress. In the new wave of technological revolution, how to effectively integrate high-level human resources with cutting-edge digital technologies, enhance the comprehensive guarantee capacity of major grain-producing areas, optimize the allocation of production factors, and promote the transformation of these areas from traditional development models to modern, high-quality development paradigms, has become a major theoretical and practical issue that urgently requires in-depth research and resolution [4].

Currently, the relevant research progress on digital–real integration and new quality productive forces, both domestically and internationally, is as follows [5,6,7]. Digital–real integration is generally defined as “the penetration and application of digital technology in various aspects of the real economy to achieve their coordinated development [8,9,10,11,12],” specifically covering multiple dimensions such as technology integration, factor integration, product integration, and process integration [13]. Existing studies have analyzed its spatial–temporal evolution characteristics [14] and explored its impact on enterprises, industries, and economic development [15,16,17], among other aspects. Additionally, international scholars have systematically elucidated from the perspective of digital transformation how digital technologies reshape corporate business models and value creation processes, emphasizing that the deep integration of digital technologies with traditional business operations serves as a key source of a competitive advantage for enterprises [18]. Agricultural new quality productive forces are explained as “representing the leap of agricultural productivity driven by technological innovation [19], with its core being the innovative transformation of agricultural production factors, production processes, and the organization, division of labor, and cooperation along the industrial chain [20,21].” In terms of measurement, scholars have constructed evaluation indicator systems for agricultural new quality productive forces [22,23,24] and identified the empowering roles of digital technologies and green energy transformation in their development [25,26,27]. Regarding the relationship between digital–real integration and new quality productive forces, existing studies have begun preliminary exploration at the industry and enterprise levels. From the industry perspective, digital–real integration influences new quality productive forces by promoting the rationalization and upgrading of industrial structures [28]. Through deep integration of digital technologies with physical manufacturing, the agility, precision control, and market responsiveness of production processes are enhanced. This drives the systemic digital transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, promotes the optimization and collaborative integration of resource allocation, and provides important support for the cultivation and growth of new quality productive forces [29]. From the enterprise level, digital–real integration promotes the development of new quality productive forces by reducing production costs and improving management efficiency [30]. Enterprises use digital tools to achieve precise operations, agile production, and intelligent supply chains, effectively optimizing processes, controlling costs, and improving efficiency [29]. Related international research has found that digitalization strategies can enhance firm performance by optimizing resource allocation, improving operational efficiency, and promoting innovation, thereby providing theoretical support for understanding how digital–real integration drives productivity enhancement [31].

Although the existing literature has conducted preliminary exploration on the relationship between the two based on the 30 provinces (municipalities) of China [3,32,33], which lays a good theoretical foundation for this article, the following shortcomings still exist: (1) The research objects are relatively broad, lacking focused analysis of the major grain-producing regions; (2) many studies construct evaluation indicator systems for new quality productive forces from the traditional “three labor” (labor, labor materials, labor objects) [34,35,36,37] perspective, with limited innovation; (3) there remains a research gap in conducting in-depth exploration of the mechanisms through which digital–real integration affects new quality productive forces in agriculture, specifically focusing on the 13 major grain-producing provinces as research subjects. Based on this, this paper takes 13 major grain-producing areas as the research object, with the possible marginal contributions reflected in the following. (1) Focus and deepening of the research perspective: the study can more accurately reveal the practical effects and unique patterns of digital and real integration in core agricultural regions by precisely focusing on the 13 major grain-producing areas in China. (2) Innovation and reconstruction of the evaluation indicator system: this study breaks through the limitations of the traditional “three labor” perspective by constructing a comprehensive evaluation indicator system for agricultural new quality productive forces that aligns with the three main characteristics of “high-technology investment, high-efficiency performance, and high-quality development.” This enables a more scientific and comprehensive measurement of their actual development level. (3) In-depth analysis and expansion of action mechanisms: this study takes agricultural industrial structure upgrading and agricultural green total factor productivity as mediating variables to explore the transmission pathways between digital–real integration and new quality productive forces in agriculture. Furthermore, it conducts spatial effects analysis, heterogeneity analysis, and threshold effects analysis, rendering the mechanism research more systematic and comprehensive.

2. Study Site Overview

China’s major grain-producing regions are key agricultural production zones designated by the government to ensure food security, occupying an irreplaceable and central position in the national food security strategy. These regions encompass 13 provinces: Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan, and Sichuan. Despite accounting for less than half of the nation’s cultivated land, these areas produce nearly 80% of the country’s grain output and supply over 90% of its marketable grain, demonstrating their exceptional production concentration and supply capacity. They play a decisive role in guaranteeing absolute staple food security, stabilizing grain supply, and maintaining market equilibrium, serving as the “ballast stone” of China’s food security system. Given the strategic position of major grain-producing regions within the national food security framework, investigating the mechanisms through which digital–real integration influences new quality productive forces in agriculture holds significant theoretical value and practical implications for exploring pathways toward agricultural modernization and enhancing comprehensive grain production capacity. Therefore, focusing on major grain-producing regions as research subjects is not only representative and typical but also provides critical policy insights and practical guidance for safeguarding national food security (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Distribution map of China’s major grain-producing areas.

3. Theoretical Analysis and Research Hypotheses

3.1. Direct Impact of Digital–Real Integration on Agricultural New Quality Productive Forces

Digital–real integration serves as the core driving force for developing new quality productive forces in agriculture. This process extends beyond mere technological application; it represents a profound convergence of the digital economy and the agricultural real economy at the levels of production factors, operational processes, and organizational structures. Its impact manifests across three critical dimensions. First, from the high-tech advancement perspective, digital infrastructure development and agricultural digitalization provide innovative pathways for knowledge generation and dissemination in agriculture. Technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and remote sensing monitoring, establish comprehensive data perception networks spanning the entire agricultural production cycle, enabling technological innovation to shift from experience-based accumulation to precision-driven iteration grounded in real-time data analytics. This not only directly elevates agricultural technological capabilities but, more importantly, stimulates innovation capacity across diverse business entities by lowering research and development barriers and accelerating knowledge diffusion [38]. Second, from the high-quality development dimension, digital tools enable refined management of the relationship between agricultural production and resource environments. Precision farming technologies, including variable-rate fertilization and intelligent irrigation systems, dynamically adjust inputs based on crop requirements and environmental conditions, fundamentally reducing excessive application of fertilizers and pesticides and directly mitigating non-point source pollution. Simultaneously, comprehensive data traceability and monitoring systems provide credible management tools for green business models, such as ecological and circular agriculture, driving the transformation of agricultural production toward environmental sustainability [39]. Third, from the high-efficiency dimension, the digitalization of industries and industrial digitalization reshape value creation and distribution mechanisms in agriculture. Emerging business models, such as e-commerce platforms and smart logistics systems, shorten the farm-to-table distance and enhance circulation efficiency, while technologies, like big data and blockchain, strengthen trust and coordination across all links of the industrial chain, promoting deep integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in rural areas. This systematic collaborative optimization transforms agricultural growth from dependence on yield increases in isolated segments to value appreciation through efficiency improvements across the entire industrial chain [40]. In summary, digital–real integration systematically establishes the foundation for developing new quality productive forces in agriculture by infusing data elements, optimizing production processes, and restructuring industrial organization. Based on this, Hypothesis 1 is proposed:

Hypothesis 1.

Digital–real integration can effectively promote the development of agricultural new quality productive forces.

3.2. Indirect Impact of Digital–Real Integration on Agricultural New Quality Productive Forces

In the transmission mechanism through which digital–real integration influences new quality productive forces in agriculture, this study identifies agricultural industrial structure and agricultural green total factor productivity as key mediating variables. Theoretically, the formation of new quality productive forces is inseparable from “structural optimization” and “efficiency enhancement”: industrial structural upgrading embodies profound transformations in production organization methods and resource allocation patterns, while green total factor productivity encompasses elements such as technological progress, efficiency improvement, and environmental protection. Compared to single-factor inputs or traditional productivity indicators, these two variables offer a more comprehensive depiction of the pathways through which digital–real integration drives the development of agricultural new quality productive forces, examining the process from the perspectives of “industrial structural reshaping” and “factor efficiency improvement,” respectively.

3.2.1. Digital–Real Integration, Agricultural Industrial Structure Upgrading, and Agricultural New Quality Productive Forces

Agricultural industrial structure reflects the composition and proportional relationships among various industries within agriculture and serves as an important bridge linking digital–real integration with agricultural new quality productive forces. On the one hand, digital–real integration supports the optimization and upgrading of agricultural industrial structure through promoting agricultural digital transformation. The application of digital tec