Abstract: Based on the Chinese provincial panel data from 2011 to 2021, this paper explores the impact of digital economy on agricultural carbon emission intensity with the fixed effect model, the spatial Dubin model and the threshold effect model. The results show that the development of digital economy can significantly reduce the intensity of agricultural carbon emission. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the influence of digital economy on agriculture carbon emission reduction mainly comes from the industrial digitization, and that this effect is stronger in the relatively underdeveloped areas and the non-main grain producing areas. The mechanism analysis shows that the digital economy can promote agricultural carbon emission reduction by encouraging agricultural green technology innovation, but the optimization of the structure of agricultural energy consumption has not been able to promote agricultural carbon emission reduction. The spatial effect shows that the development of digital economy has a negative spatial spillover effect on agricultural carbon emission intensity. The nonlinear relationship test shows that the negative correlation between digital economy and agricultural carbon emission intensity has nonlinear characteristics; when the development level of digital economy and the innovation level of agricultural green technology exceed the threshold value, the agricultural carbon reduction effect of the digital economy shows a marginal decreasing feature. Therefore, it is suggested to make full use of digital economy to accelerate the “double carbon” process of the agricultural sector, give full play to the green technology enabling role of digital economy, and strengthen the digital collaboration and environmental collaborative governance between the regions, so as to continuously release the agricultural emission reduction effect of digital economy.

Key words: digital economy, carbon emission reduction effect, agricultural carbon emissions intensity, agricultural green development