Investigating the Interplay of ICT and Agricultural Inputs on Sustainable Agricultural Production: An ARDL Approach

Sustainable agriculture is an important target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Information and communication technologies (ICT) could be an important instrument to assist developing countries in achieving this goal. This study investigates the short-and long-term effects of ICT-related factors (telephone, Internet, mobile phone use) alongside traditional inputs (agricultural land, labor, fertilizer) on sustainable agricultural production in Bangladesh using an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model from 2000 to 2020. In the short term, telephone use and labor involved in agriculture have a positive impact on agricultural production. Conversely, the influence of internet use, mobile phone use, and agricultural land on agricultural production is negative in the short run. In the long run, these relationships have undergone substantial changes. The positive effects of telephone usage and agricultural labor demonstrate a decreasing trend, but the impacts of Internet usage, mobile phone usage, and total agricultural land display a progressively favorable pattern in the long run. Notably, the use of fertilizers has been found to have a positive impact on long-term agricultural production. This study offers valuable insights into the evolving role of ICT in agricultural sustainability, emphasizing the need for context-specific policy interventions that consider both short-and long-term benefits.