Trading for Stability: How Agricultural E-Commerce Participation Enhances Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience in Rural China

Agricultural E-commerce alters farmers’ production and marketing decisions, thereby shaping land-use intensity and livelihood stability. In the context of rapid digital transformation, enhancing farmers’ livelihood resilience is critical to sustainable rural development and resilience to socio-economic and environmental shocks. Using survey data from 542 rural communities in China, this study examines the relationship between agricultural E-commerce participation and farmers’ livelihood resilience across its multidimensional components. The empirical results show that participation in agricultural E-commerce is positively associated with farmers’ overall livelihood resilience, with notable positive associations with buffering capacity, learning capacity, and self-organization capacity. Among these, learning capacity exhibits the strongest association, followed by buffering capacity and self-organization capacity. Farmers’ digital capability positively moderates the relationship between E-commerce participation and livelihood resilience by facilitating access to and effective use of digital information, thereby lowering information costs and contributing to returns from online market participation. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that the positive association between agricultural E-commerce participation and livelihood resilience is stronger among cooperative members, households with adequate production capital, non-agricultural households, and families with sufficient labor resources. By identifying the role of agricultural E-commerce in building livelihood resilience, this study contributes to the empirical understanding of how digital engagement may support inclusive and sustainable rural development under similar institutional conditions.