Taking the path of green development is the general trend of the current society. As the largest developing country in the world, China advocates the concept of green development, combines economic, social and ecological consideration, and pursues a high‐quality development model, which is of great significance to protecting China's ecological environment and sustainable economic growth. This paper introduces the 13th Five‐Year Plan for environmental protection, and analyzes the influence of Chinese environmental protection planning on agricultural productivity through the double difference and intermediary effect model. The results show that the implementation of the 13th Five‐Year Plan has a significant positive impact on agricultural productivity, increasing the agricultural productivity in poor counties by 7.74 percentage points; the agricultural mechanization level partly between the environmental protection plan and agricultural productivity in poor counties, and the intermediary effect is cover effect. Therefore, moderate environmental regulation is the key to improve the green growth of agricultural productivity and the sustainable development of the county economy. This study aims to provide empirical evidence for the Chinese government to improve its environmental policies and measures and formulate a green agricultural development strategy.