Objective/Meaning  Agricultural and rural modernization is the core engine to meet the people’s growing needs for a better life and realize the comprehensive revitalization of the countryside. The digital rural construction has injected the strong momentum into this process. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the impact of digital rural construction on the agricultural and rural modernization, and to deeply reveal its mechanism of action, so as to provide the policy reference for promoting the overall revitalization of rural areas.

Methods/Procedures  On the basis of theoretical analysis, based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2023, the panel fixed effect model, mediating effect model and threshold effect model were used to empirically discuss the influence effect and mechanism of digital rural construction on the agricultural and rural modernization.

Results/Conclusions  (1) The baseline regression results showed that the digital rural construction could directly promote the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and this conclusion was still valid under the consideration of a variety of endogenous and robustness tests. (2) The results of the mediating model test showed that the agricultural innovation and the modernization of agricultural industry chain were two important paths for the digital rural construction to empower the agricultural and rural modernization. (3) The heterogeneity analysis showed that the empowerment effect of digital rural construction was more significant in the major grain sales areas, in the areas with low marketization index and in the regions with low agricultural labor productivity. (4) The further analysis found that with the improvement of farmers’ education level, after exceeding a certain threshold, the role of digital rural construction in promoting the agricultural and rural modernization has gradually weakened.