Abstract: To explore the impact of building agricultural product geographical indication brands on high-quality agricultural development and the threshold effects of industrial structure, using panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2008 to 2023, an evaluation system comprising five dimensions—innovation, coordination, green development, openness, and sharing—was constructed and the entropy method was employed to objectively measure the level of high-quality agricultural development across provinces. Based on this, the two-way fixed effects model, instrumental variables, and panel threshold model were employed to empirically test the direct impact of agricultural product geographical indication brand development on high-quality agricultural development, its heterogeneity characteristics, and the moderating role of industrial structure. The results showed that agricultural product geographical indication brand development had a significant positive impact on high-quality agricultural development, primarily manifested in the innovation and sharing dimensions; however, this impact exhibited significant spatial heterogeneity, exerting a significant driving effect only in the central region. This promotional effect was subject to a single-threshold constraint imposed by industrial structure. When the level of industrial structure had not exceeded the threshold value of 1.067, the brand′s driving effect was limited and failed to pass the significance test; once the threshold of 1.067 was crossed, supported by the development and complementary infrastructure of modern service industries, the brand empowerment effect had experienced a substantial leap and was highly significant at the 1% statistical level, exhibiting a distinct nonlinear characteristic of increasing marginal utility.

Key words: geographical indications for agricultural products, brand building, high-quality agricultural development, industrial structure, threshold model