Assessing the Impact of Digital Economic Development on the Resilience of China’s Agricultural Industry Chain

Based on panel data from China’s 31 provinces and municipalities covering 2011–2023, this study constructs a multidimensional evaluation system for digital economic development and agricultural industrial chain resilience within the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework. It systematically examines the impact of the digital economy on agricultural industrial chain resilience and its sub-dimensions, while introducing green finance as a moderating variable. The findings reveal: First, the development of the digital economy significantly enhances the resilience of the agricultural industrial chain. This conclusion withstands multiple robustness tests, and the impact of the digital economy on the three dimensions of agricultural industrial chain resilience (resistance, recovery, and reconstruction) varies, particularly exhibiting a negative effect on reconstruction. Second, the enabling effect of the digital economy on agricultural industrial chain resilience shows a significant spatial gradient. Regionally, resilience is ranked as “Production-Sales Balance Zones > Main Sales Zones > Main Production Zones” within grain functional zones, and “Northeast > West > East > Central” across China’s four major economic regions. Third, green finance development exerts a negative moderating effect on the pathway through which the digital economy enhances agricultural supply chain resilience, higher green finance levels weaken the marginal improvement effect of the digital economy. This study fills research gaps regarding the multidimensional impact of digital economic development on agricultural industrial chain resilience and empirically supplements the lack of evidence on the negative moderating mechanism of green finance and its sub-dimensions, providing policy tools for agricultural modernization and resilience governance.