Currently, China’s agriculture faces challenges such as high dependence on traditional production factors and insufficient sustainability in production models. Therefore, developing new quality productive forces in agriculture led by scientific and technological innovation is a crucial pathway for achieving the transformation from “a large agricultural country with small-scale farming” to “a strong agricultural country”, thereby advancing agricultural modernization. Meanwhile, as market-oriented reforms in China’s banking sector continue to deepen and a competitive market structure gradually takes shape, this evolving landscape is increasingly demonstrating its effectiveness in alleviating financing constraints for agricultural entities and optimizing capital allocation. However, existing research primarily focuses on the connotations and challenges of new quality productive forces in agriculture, with limited exploration of the impact mechanism of banking competition from a financial perspective. There is an urgent need for a systematic investigation into the relationship between banking competition and new quality productive forces in agriculture to fill the research gap. Based on this, this paper focuses on examining the impact effects, transmission pathways, and moderating factors of banking competition on new quality productive forces in agriculture, aiming to provide empirical support for leveraging finance to empower high-quality agricultural development. This study utilizes provincial panel data from 2013 to 2022 and adopts an empirical analysis method for testing. The findings are as follows: First, banking competition promotes the development of new agricultural quality productivity, with this effect primarily reflected in intelligence and high-end development, while its role in greening is not significant. Second, banking competition enhances new quality productive forces in agriculture through three pathways: cultivating new types of agricultural business entities, increasing agricultural-related investments, and promoting agricultural technological innovation. Third, the impact of banking competition on new quality productive forces in agriculture is more pronounced in regions with high agricultural industry agglomeration, abundant human capital, and major grain-producing areas. Fourth, the development of financial technology enhances the empowering effect of banking competition on new quality productive forces in agriculture. Financial regulation exhibits an “inverted U-shaped” moderating effect on the relationship between banking competition and new quality productive forces in agriculture: when financial regulatory intensity is relatively low, strengthening regulation enhances the empowering effect of banking competition; however, once regulatory intensity exceeds a certain threshold, strong regulation weakens the empowering effect of banking competition on new quality productive forces in agriculture. The marginal contributions of this paper are mainly reflected in three aspects: First, this study expands the research perspective on new quality productive forces in agriculture. By integrating finance and new quality productive forces in agriculture, this paper enriches existing studies on new quality productive forces in agriculture and provides empirical evidence on how financial development contributes to their advancement. Second, this study expands the research framework for the development of new quality productive forces in agriculture. It innovatively incorporates the cultivation level of new-type agricultural operators, agricultural-related investment, and agricultural technological innovation into the analysis system, reveals the transmission mechanism through which banking competition affects new quality productive forces in agriculture, and helps deepen the understanding of their relationship. Third, this study enriches the policy measures for the development of new quality productive forces in agriculture and provides diversified financial support approaches for their advancement.