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.

Cultivated land planting structure is directly related to China’s food security. The Central Rural Work Conference in 2021 pointed out that to ensure food security, attention should be paid to the adjustment of planting structure. Therefore, it is necessary to explore whether land tenure security has an impact on farmers’ cultivated land non-grain behavior. Based on the micro survey data of 550 farmers in the Guanzhong Plain, this paper explores the impact of land tenure security on farmers’ cultivated land non-grain behavior with the help of the OLS model and the Binary Probit model, and further explores its internal transmission mechanism through the mediation effect model. It is found that land tenure security significantly promotes farmers’ cultivated land non-grain behavior. After replacing model estimation, core variables for robustness tests, and solving endogeneity problems, the research conclusion is still valid. The analysis of the influence mechanism shows that land tenure security affects farmers’ cultivated land non-grain behavior by increasing land transfer and agricultural productive investment. Among them, agricultural productive investment has the greatest impact, followed by land transfer. In addition, the study also found that land tenure security can promote their cultivated land non-grain behavior by strengthening their credit availability for farmers with low fragmentation. Heterogeneity analysis results show that off-farm employment and social services can effectively alleviate the impact of land tenure security on farmers’ cultivated land non-grain behavior. This paper provides a new research perspective for analyzing the incentives of cultivated land non-grain from the micro-mechanism. At the same time, it revealed the inner root of the government’s predicament in the governance of cultivated land non-grain. It provided a new reference for the government to formulate new policies for managing non-grained cultivated land.

Exploring the relationship between child rearing burden and farmers’ adoption of climate adaptation technologies can be used to improve farmers’ adoption of these technologies, thus reducing the impact of climate change on agricultural production and increasing agricultural output. However, with the full implementation of the Chinese three-child policy, the number of children in families will continue to increase and the cost of raising children will rise, which will have a crowding out effect on the adoption of climate adaptive technologies. In this context, we analyzed the impact and mechanism of child rearing burden on farmers’ adoption of climate adaptive technology by Probit model and discussed its heterogeneity based on family life cycle theory. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 511 farm households in the 3 provinces of China to produce the findings. We found that the child rearing burden had a significant negative impact on farmers’ adoption of climate adaptive technology. The impact mechanism analysis showed that the child rearing burden mainly affected farmers’ adoption of climate adaptive technology through three paths: risk appetite, economic capital and non-agricultural employment, with non-agricultural employment having the largest impact, followed by risk appetite and finally, economic capital. Furthermore, the effect of child rearing burden on the adoption of climate adaptive technology was heterogeneous amid different family life cycles: In the upbringing and burden period, the child support burden had a significant negative impact on the adoption of climate adaptive technology and the impact was greater in the upbringing period, while in the stable period, the child support burden had a significant positive impact on the adoption of climate adaptive technology. The influence mechanism was also heterogeneous in different family life cycles. This paper not only provides research evidence on the relationship between child rearing burden and farmers’ adoption of climate adaptive technology, but also has certain empirical value for the formulation and implementation of supportive measures for improving fertility policies.

Shifting from a land-scale operation to a service-scale operation of agricultural production chain outsourcing services (APOS) is crucial to achieving innovation in agricultural-scale operation techniques. Using propensity score matching (PSM) and data from 1027 farm households in Guanzhong Plain, Shaanxi Province, we empirically assessed the impact of APOS on agricultural output level and output risk. First, age, gender, health, education, training, number of outworkers, land tenure, land contiguity, and subsidy satisfaction had a substantial beneficial influence on the involvement of farm families in APOS. Second, involvement in APOS may greatly increase the amount of agricultural production and lower the risk associated with farm families’ agricultural output. Moreover, the participation in outsourcing services for agricultural machinery use and field management significantly increased agricultural output and decreased output risk, but the participation in agricultural machinery use outsourcing services increased yield and reduced risks more significantly.

In the context of revitalizing rural development, farmer entrepreneurship has emerged as a significant driver of rural economic growth. However, existing research has not sufficiently examined the specific mechanisms or heterogeneous effects through which digital skills influence farm household entrepreneurial behavior. This gap is the focus of the present study. Utilizing micro-level survey data collected from 936 farm households across Shandong, Shaanxi, and Henan provinces in 2021, we construct a digital skills index using factor analysis. We then employ a Probit model and an Interaction term model to examine the impact of digital skills on entrepreneurial behavior among Chinese rural households and its underlying mechanisms. Additionally, we explore heterogeneity across different household types. The results show that digital skills are positively associated with entrepreneurial decision-making. Further analysis provides suggestive evidence that this relationship may operate through three channels: shaping risk preferences, expanding relational networks, and improving access to credit. Heterogeneity tests reveal that the promoting effect of digital skills is stronger among disadvantaged households, households with a head younger than 45, and those engaged in opportunity-driven or online entrepreneurship. Theoretically, this study contributes by empirically validating a multi-pathway mechanism framework and identifying relevant boundary conditions. Practically, it offers targeted insights for policymakers to design skill-based interventions and foster inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems in rural areas.