Organizational cooperation, internet use, and green technology adoption among aquaculture farmers: Empirical evidence from China

Promoting green technology adoption in aquaculture is important for balancing production growth with environmental sustainability, yet the roles of organizational support and digital access remain insufficiently understood. Using 2024 survey data from 437 aquaculture farmers in China, this study examines the effect of organizational cooperation on green technology adoption and the moderating role of internet use. Ordered Probit and moderation models are employed, and endogeneity is addressed using a conditional mixed process model. The results show that organizational cooperation significantly promotes green technology adoption. Among its underlying dimensions, capacity building, production coordination, and social learning show the most robust positive effects. Internet use not only directly promotes adoption but also strengthens the effect of organizational cooperation, suggesting complementarity between offline organizational support and digital information access. Heterogeneity analysis further indicates that this moderating effect is stronger in public-service and peer-collaboration organizations, in disease prevention and precision feeding technologies, and among small-scale and risk-preferring farmers. Robustness checks confirm the baseline results, and the extended analysis shows that organizational cooperation and internet use also improve implementation depth after adoption. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of combining organizational support with digital empowerment to reduce farmers’ perceived complexity and advance the green transition of aquaculture.