Digital economy and agricultural green total factor productivity: Is investment important?

The digital economy serves as a pivotal driver for the advancement of green agriculture. By leveraging capital investments, the technological capabilities of the digital economy can be harnessed to promote the sustainable development of agriculture. This study assesses the total factor productivity of green agriculture using an enhanced DEA-SBM approach, and investigates the impact of the digital economy on green agricultural TFP, with a specific emphasis on the roles of material capital and human capital investments. The key findings indicate that: The digital economy primarily enhances agricultural green total factor productivity by improving technical efficiency. From the perspective of physical capital investment, fiscal decentralization and farmers' fixed asset investments exhibit a "first suppressed, then raised" positive U-shaped regulatory effect, whereas fiscal support for agriculture demonstrates a gradually diminishing negative regulatory effect. In terms of human capital investment, farmers' education investments have an inhibitory effect, but this negative impact tends to weaken with increasing levels of education investment. The internal portfolio of physical capital investments yields the most effective synergistic effect, followed by the combination of physical capital and human capital investments, with fiscal decentralization playing a critical role. Significant regional and agricultural policy heterogeneities are observed. The study aims to elucidate the roles of government and farmers in the digital economy's contribution to agricultural greening and to provide practical policy recommendations for optimizing sustainable agricultural development.