Digital Rural Construction and Agricultural Technological Choice Under Land Constraints: Evidence from China

Cultivated land is a basic factor in agricultural production, but it is also subject to increasingly strict resource constraints. Under such conditions, agricultural development needs to rely more on the effective use of capital, labor, and digital technologies on existing farmland rather than on the expansion of land input. This study examines the impact of digital rural construction on agricultural technological choice under land constraints. Using panel data from 28 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2024, this paper first measures capital–land and labor–land biased technological progress based on a normalized factor-augmenting CES production function, and then constructs a multidimensional index of digital rural construction. The empirical results show that digital rural construction significantly promotes both capital–land and labor–land biased technological progress, with a stronger effect on the capital–land dimension. This indicates that digital rural construction mainly promotes agricultural technological choice through capital-embodied and digitally enabled technologies, while also improving the role of labor in agricultural production and land management. The mechanism analysis shows that the capital–land effect is mainly driven by the price effect, whereas the labor–land effect is mainly driven by the scale effect. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effects are more pronounced in eastern China, while the effects in central and western regions are weaker and more differentiated. These findings suggest that digital rural construction reshapes agricultural technological choice by changing how capital and labor are combined with limited land resources. The study provides evidence for promoting agricultural transformation, improving land-use sustainability, and strengthening digital governance in agriculture.