The Digital Economy Empowers the Sustainable Development of China’s Agriculture-Related Industries

Firstly, based on the data of China’s noncompetitive input–output tables from 2002 to 2017, this paper comprehensively grasps the integration trend of China’s agriculture-related industries and digital economy industries by constructing integration contribution and interaction indicators. Secondly, the correlation between the two industries is analyzed more intuitively with the help of the APL (Average Propagation Length) model. Finally, it analyzes the coordination of the digital economy industry and the transformation of the agriculture industry with the help of the grey correlation method. The results show that the digital economy industries contribute the most in absolute terms, compared to other industries, to the agro-processing industry and have the highest degree of integration and interaction with the agricultural product transportation and marketing industry. In terms of the breakdown of the digital economy industries, digital product manufacturing is weakly linked to agriculture-related industries, but the coordination among the transformation and upgrading of agriculture is gradually improving. Compared to digital product manufacturing, the digital technology application industry has a higher direct contribution to the agriculture-related industry. After 2012, the overall driving and pulling effect on the agriculture-related industry is basically the same, and the coordination with agricultural transformation and upgrading is optimal. The contribution of the digital factor-driven industry to agriculture-related industries experienced an explosive period after 2012, with the highest overall contribution and strongest industrial linkage between the two, while coordination with the transformation and upgrading of agriculture decreases. Therefore, in combination with the No. 1 document of the Central Government in 2022, which specifically calls for the implementation of the “digital business to promote agriculture” project and the promotion of e-commerce in the countryside, this paper puts forward suggestions to give full play to the role of digital technology in the sustainable development of agriculture-related industries