Promoting the diffusion of green agricultural production technologies is a crucial measure for achieving a green agricultural transition, but farmers’ adoption of these technologies remains constrained by factors such as information asymmetry and insufficient awareness. Based on micro-level survey data from Jiangsu Province farmers, this study adopts a social network perspective to construct an analytical framework linking “social networks–green knowledge access–adoption intensity of green agricultural production technologies.” Employing the Ordered Probit model and Bootstrap method, it empirically examines the impact of social networks on farmers’ adoption intensity of green agricultural production technologies and its underlying mechanisms. Compared with existing research, this study further investigates the stratified heterogeneity of educational attainment. Research findings indicate the following: (1) Social networks significantly enhance the intensity of farmers’ adoption of green agricultural production technologies and drive the transition from lower to higher levels of adoption. (2) Green knowledge access plays a significant mediating role in the process by which social networks influence the adoption intensity of green agricultural production technologies; Bootstrap tests indicate that the indirect effect is significant. (3) Educational attainment exhibits stratified moderating effects on the aforementioned mediating mechanisms. Among these, the conditional indirect effect is significant and most pronounced in the medium-education group, whereas the indirect effects in both the low and high-education groups are insignificant. Based on the research findings, this paper proposes strengthening networked promotion and demonstrating diffusion mechanisms at the village level. It emphasizes enhancing the comprehensibility and operability of technical information by focusing on green knowledge access as a key starting point. Furthermore, it advocates implementing differentiated promotion strategies and tailored support policies for distinct educational groups to foster sustained, high-intensity adoption of green agricultural production technologies.
Liang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.