SDSSocial Development Studies3083-38763083-3868Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.26689/SDS.v2i3.16177ArticleStudy on How Technology Empowers the Yuxi Plateau’s Specialty Agriculture Base in China to Improve Quality and Efficiency, and Its Current Challengeshttps://artdesignp.com/journal/SDS/2/3/10.26689/SDS.v2i3.16177LiZefeng,XuTianyong,LiHongli,XuHuiqing2026232026-06-30Yuxi City in China is using its unique plateau climate and rich resources to push the transformation and upgrading of highland specialty agricultural bases through modern facility farming. This paper, based on the theory of new agricultural productivity, builds a three-step analysis framework of “technology embedding—factor upgrading—value realization.” By looking at typical cases like Chengjiang blueberries, Tonghai vegetables, Hongta flowers, and Huaning citrus, it explores how technology boosts the quality and efficiency of highland specialty agriculture. The study finds that technology reshapes production decisions through facility replacement and digital integration, upgrades factor systems through improvements in labor tools, laborers, and labor objects, and completes value conversion through efficiency gains, quality standardization, and brand empowerment. These three mechanisms form a stepwise causal chain, but each level faces structural challenges: technology mismatch and promotion obstacles limit the depth of tech embedding, seed industry gaps and talent shortages restrict factor upgrading, and poor outcomes transfer along with uneven benefit distribution weaken value realization. Tackling these issues requires coordinated efforts in tech adaptation, seed industry breakthroughs, talent cultivation and introduction, innovation in transformation mechanisms, and optimizing benefit links, helping tech empowerment move from a “demonstration bonsai” to a “beneficial landscape.”Science and technology empowerment, Plateau characteristic agriculture, Quality and efficiency enhancement, Mechanism of action, Practical constraints

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