Measurement Of Digital Agriculture And Its Impact On Farmers’ Income Level

Digital agriculture is the future direction of agriculture.Literature research shows that there are many research results on the measurement of the development level of digital economy at present,but there are still few studies on the index system and measurement methods of digital agriculture,so the measurement research of the development level of digital agriculture needs to be further in-depth.Secondly,based on the analysis results of the development level of digital agriculture,the level of digital agriculture in different provinces is very uneven,that is,some provinces have a high level of development,but the provinces in the central and western regions have a low level of development.During the period from 2011 to 2020,while the country’s digital agriculture was booming,farmers’ income also increased rapidly,but the growth rate slowed down.In this context,it is of great significance to study the impact of digital agriculture on farmers’ income level.In the empirical analysis part,the evaluation index system of the development level of digital agriculture is firstly constructed,including 25 sub-indexes including the four first-level indexes of digital agricultural development environment,basic support,digital industry development and ecological benefit.Then,based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2020,non-agricultural industry development level,urbanization level,government support,regional education level and technological innovation were selected as control variables,and static fixed-effect model and dynamic system GMM model were used respectively to empirically test the impact of digital agriculture development on farmers’ income level.The empirical analysis draws the following conclusions: First,the development of digital agriculture has a positive impact on the improvement of farmers’ income level,and the impact is different in different regions.Specifically,the impact of the eastern region is greater than that of the central region and the central region is greater than that of the western region.In other words,the more developed the economy is,the more significant the positive impact of digital agriculture on farmers’ income level is.In addition,this influence also has a spatial spillover effect,which will positively affect the improvement of farmers’ income level in surrounding areas.Second,the development of digital agriculture has a greater impact on farmers with higher incomes than those with lower incomes.From the perspective of income structure,the impact on wage income is greater than that on business income.Third,the development of digital agriculture can improve the income level of farmers by increasing the level of rural entrepreneurship,facilitating the transfer of rural labor force and narrowing the urban-rural income gap.The empirical results passed the robustness test,and the test methods included instrumental variable method,shortening the data age,eliminating special samples and tail reduction treatment.The regression results were still significant after considering the endogeneity.Based on the results,the following suggestions are put forward: strengthen the construction of digital infrastructure,continue to promote the digital transformation of agriculture,improve the development environment of digital agriculture,improve the level of rural innovation and entrepreneurship,promote the transfer of rural labor force and continue to narrow the urban-rural income gap.