Will Digital Financial Inclusion Increase Chinese Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt Agricultural Technology?

Abstract

Studies consider the impact of financial support on agricultural technology adoption, but do not consider the role of the rapidly evolving Digital Financial Inclusion (DFI). This study analyzes the impact of DFI on farmers’ willingness to adopt agricultural technology (WTAAT) using data from the China Labor-force Dynamics Survey and the Digital Financial Inclusion Index of Peking University, China. The results show that DFI significantly increases farmers’ WTAAT, consistent with the results of robustness tests. Moreover, the analysis of moderating effects shows that the contribution of DFI to WTAAT increases with the level of financial market development. Finally, WTAAT is affected by DFI development among farmers who receive government subsidies, participate in production technology training, and have no local non-agricultural economy. Therefore, we propose policy recommendations for developing DFI in rural areas, improving the financial market environment, and increasing subsidies and technical training. Our study provides some empirical evidence for exploring the field of agricultural technology adoption from the perspective of DFI and also provides new ideas for combining the digital transformation of finance with sustainable agricultural development, enriching the development of research in this field, which may also provide policy insights for the development of agricultural modernization in China and other countries.