ook et al., 2025 ; Song and Sun, 2025). The transition to the digital era has catalyzed a profound transformation in farming practices, unlocking unprecedented levels of efficiency and productivity (Baiming and Voskerichyan, 2024). The integration of advanced technologies—artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), big-data analytics, robotics, and blockchain—has propelled precision agriculture into a new epoch commonly termed Agriculture 4.0 or smart farming (Kumar Apat et al., 2023 ).
These global pressures manifest with particular intensity in northern China, a region th