Role of Digital Empowerment in Developing Farmers’ Green Production by Agro-Tourism Integration in Xichong, Sichuan

Abstract

Minimal participation in green agricultural development may be achieved via the conventional integration of agriculture and tourism, which has a minimal impact on farmers’ green output. New traits have emerged as a result of agro-tourism integration with digital empowerment. It was shown that agro-tourism integration with digital empowerment had a stronger impact on farmers’ green output than traditional agro-tourism integration, based on the construction of the dynamic information game model and the case of Xichong, Sichuan. The integration of agriculture and tourism from the perspective of digital empowerment is characterized by “data traceability” and “information diffusion”, which restrains opportunistic farmer impersonation. The feature of “knowledge sharing” promotes the progress of agricultural technology, reduces the cost of green production and increases the probability of farmers producing high-quality agricultural products. The “information matching” feature promotes the symmetry of quality information, and production and sales information at both ends of supply and demand, and raises the prices of high-quality agricultural products. The latter two features jointly enhance the willingness of honest farmers to produce green items by reducing the cost of green production and increasing the prices of high-quality agricultural products. From the perspective of digital empowerment, the integration of agriculture and tourism can further promote farmers’ green production by effectively suppressing opportunistic farmers’ fake behavior and promoting honest farmers’ green production to a greater extent.