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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1444192
This article is part of the Research Topic Strategies Of Digitalization And Sustainability In Agrifood Value Chains View all 16 articles

How does digital technology application empower specialty agricultural farmers? Evidence from Chinese litchi farmers

Provisionally accepted
Jing Xu Jing Xu Junyi Wan Junyi Wan *Zhiqiang Dai Zhiqiang Dai *
  • South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Specialty agricultural farmers have widely adopted digital technologies in all aspects of their specialty agricultural operations. However, the effect of digital technology application (DTA) on specialty agricultural farmers’ income has not been fully evaluated. Moreover, it remains unclear whether DTA enhances farmers’ income (FI) by improving their varied capabilities. To fill this gap, we analyzed the intrinsic relationship and mechanism between DTA, farmers’ capability (FC), and specialty agricultural farmers’ income. Methods: Using field survey data from 635 litchi farmers in China, we employed OLS regression models and mediation effect models to empirically investigate DTA’s direct and indirect impacts on litchi farmers’ income. Additionally, we examined the group heterogeneity and regional heterogeneity. Results and discussion: The empirical results show that DTA can promote specialty agricultural farmers’ income by enhancing their production capacity (PC) and transaction capacity (TC). Heterogeneity analysis showed that the empowering effect of DTA is especially significant for disadvantaged farmers, and farmers who are in specialty agricultural resources-rich regions. Conclusion: This study contributes to the body of research on the empowerment of specialty agricultural farmers by examining the effect of DTA from a capability perspective. Consequently, to better play the empowering effect of DTA for specialty agricultural farmers, policymakers should account for regional disparities in promoting digital agriculture, and enhance heterogeneous farmers’ DTA capability.

    Keywords: Digital technology application, specialty agricultural farmers, Productive capacity, Transaction capacity, China

    Received: 05 Jun 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xu, Wan and Dai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Junyi Wan, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
    Zhiqiang Dai, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.