Research on the Mechanism of Digital Economy Empowering New Quality Productive Forces in Agriculture of the China

The construction of a powerful agricultural power should be based on the active development of new-quality productive forces in agriculture. The digital economy provides an opportunity for their development. This article presents a system of indicators for assessing the development of new-quality productive forces in agriculture. Using the entropy method, the level of their development is measured in 31 provinces of China from 2012 to 2022, and the spatial and temporal characteristics of their evolution are analyzed. At the theoretical level, the mechanism of the digital economy’s impact on the new-quality agricultural productive forces is explained, and their internal relationships and heterogeneity are empirically verified. It is found that the overall level of the new-quality productive forces in Chinese agriculture continues to increase, and the gap between provinces is gradually narrowing; the digital economy contributes to their development; and the effect of its impact depends on the sectoral structure of the economy.