Government Extension, Peer Communication, and Digital Technology Adoption Among Family Farms

Using survey data from 533 grain-growing family farms in Sichuan Province, this study employs a Poisson model to compare the relationships of government extension (GE) and peer communication (PC) with the number of digital technologies adopted, jointly examines cognitive and ability pathways, and conducts bounded-model, instrumental-variable and omitted-variable sensitivity analyses. The results show that PC has a stronger positive association with the adoption count; when the frequencies of the two channels increase from their respective 25th to 75th percentiles, the average predicted adoption count increases by 0.186 and 0.595 technologies, respectively, with a difference of 0.409 technologies. Perceived usefulness (PU) is a shared cognitive pathway for both channels, with a larger coefficient product for GE along this pathway; PC has a larger coefficient product along the pathway of ability to access socialized agricultural services (SA). The study reveals different linkages of the two information channels with technology cognition and service access, providing empirical evidence for connecting systematic technical information with local user experience.