To reveal the institutional income-enhancing effects of cooperatives in advancing the inclusive diffusion of agricultural intelligent technologies, this study uses data from CRRS2022 and employs multiple regression and Bootstrap-based mediation models. Grounded on a theoretical mechanism framework of “institutions–information–technology–income” it systematically identifies the direct effects of cooperative embeddedness on farm household income, its chain-mediated effects, and heterogeneous impacts across different farmer groups. The results show that: 1) Cooperative embeddedness exerts a significant positive impact on farm households’ income, but with a nonlinear effect. Only deep embedding can unlock organizational dividends, while medium embedding may instead lead to reduce income. 2) The chain transmisson of ”cooperative embeddedness → information acquisition → intelligent technology penetration intensity → planting income” shows a negative effect, reflecting a “masking effect” caused by high initial technology costs, insufficient supporting services, mismatches between information supply and farmers’ needs, and farmers’ capability constraints during the early stage of agricultural intelligent technology promotion. 3) The chain mechanism through which cooperatives raise farmers’ income exhibits marked heterogeneity across crop types and operating scales. The information-acquisition mediation path is significant for grain-crop farmers; while the chain pathway is significantly negative for mixed grain-cash crop farmers and non-scale farmers. All mediation paths are insignificant for cash-crop farmers and scale farmers. To optimize cooperative empowerment and enhance the adoption and applicaiton of intelligent agricultural technologies, policy efforts should focus on rebuilding a tiered embeddedness mechanism, shifting support from equipment subsidies to service sharing, implementing targeted empowerment strategies for different crop-type farmers, and strengthening market orientation and organizational coordination.
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