Can planting income insurance policy promote a shift in planting structure toward staple grain crops?

Introduction To ensure food security and stabilize farmers' incomes, China has implemented the Planting Income Insurance Policy (PIIP). The core objective of this policy is to steer the planting structure towards staple grain crops. However, empirical evidence regarding whether PIIP effectively facilitates planting structure adjustment remains scarce. This study aims to examine this relationship. Methods Drawing on data from the 2020 and 2022 China Land Economic Survey (CLES), this study employs a Difference-in-Differences (DID) model to examine the impact of the PIIP on the planting structure of staple grain crops and to investigate its underlying mechanisms. Results and discussion The findings of the study indicate the following: first, the implementation of the PIIP significantly facilitated a shift in planting structure towards staple grain crops. In pilot regions where this policy was implemented, the proportion of staple grain crops planted increased by an average of 15.4 percentage points compared to non-pilot regions. Second, a more detailed classification of staple grain crops revealed that the PIIP led to increases in the planting proportion for rice, wheat, and maize by 4.9, 7.1, and 3.4 percentage points, respectively. Thirdly, the policy encouraged the shift by incentivizing farmer participation in insurance, boosting agricultural machinery inputs, and expanding operational scale. Moreover, the impact of PIIP on planting structure differs among household types. A more pronounced impact was observed among households whose farmland has already been certified, whose agricultural labor endowment is weaker, and whose farmland operation scale is larger. Considering these findings, the government should introduce differentiated insurance measures tailored to various types of farming households and continue to optimize the design of the policy-based insurance system to safeguard food security.