Under the global agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals, sustainable agriculture, and inclusive digital transformation for smallholders, specialty horticultural and medicinal crop industries still face multiple prominent constraints. These include fragmented cultivation, information asymmetry across value chains, high digital adoption costs, and weak coordination among primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. Taking the Gardenia jasminoides industry in mountainous southern Zhejiang, China, as a representative case, this study aims to construct and evaluate a lightweight digital value-traceability model for smallholder-based rural industries. The study adopts a mixed-methods design, combining questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews, field investigation, quasi-natural experimental comparison, and prototype system development. Based on agricultural value‑chain theory, information asymmetry theory, and inclusive digital agriculture theory, this study proposes a conceptual framework. The framework integrates Internet of Things (IoT) sensing and consortium blockchain to establish a value‑mapping mechanism linking primary production data, secondary product quality grading, and tertiary agritourism value creation. Empirical pilot results show that the traceability model reduced product-information distortion to 0.3%, improved industrial regulatory efficiency by 40.0%, and increased standardized harvesting from 40.0% to 80.0%. It also lowered digital investment pressure for small and micro operators and expanded diversified operating income opportunities for farmers through branding, cloud adoption, harvesting reservation, and agritourism services. The study concludes that digital traceability should be understood not only as a technical tool for information verification, but also as an institutional mechanism for value conversion and three-industry integration. Theoretically, this research extends agricultural value-chain and inclusive digital agriculture studies. In practice, it provides a replicable lightweight digitalization model for specialty smallholder industries in global mountainous and rural regions, echoing the agenda of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for sustainable smallholder development.
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Huang, Y., Liu, X., Li, Y., Liu, J., Song, J. (2026) Digital Value Traceability of Gardenia jasminoides: An Inclusive Digital Pathway for Smallholder Three-industry Integration Under UN Sustainable Rural Revitalization Initiatives. Hong Kong Financial Bulletin, 2(1), 21-37. https://doi.org/10.71052/hkfb2025/ZYQU9375