Research on the impact of agricultural new quality productive forces on grain production resilience: evidence from China

Faced with the strategic demands of safeguarding national food security and advancing the high-quality development of agriculture, the research on how agricultural new quality productive forces, centered on new technologies, drive the transformation of grain production has become a crucial theoretical and practical issue. Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2022, this study measures the development levels of agricultural new quality productive forces and grain production resilience by adopting the entropy method. By employing the two-way fixed effects model, mediating effect model, and heterogeneity analysis framework, this paper empirically investigates the driving effect, influence mechanism, and regional heterogeneity characteristics of agricultural new quality productive forces on grain production resilience. The research results show that agricultural new quality productive forces exert a significant positive impact on grain production resilience, and this conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests, including one-period lag processing, Winsorization, and the exclusion of municipalities directly under the Central Government. Mechanism analysis reveals that agricultural labor productivity plays a partial mediating role in the process of agricultural new quality productive forces enhancing grain production resilience, accounting for 10.82% of the total effect. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the enabling effect of agricultural new quality productive forces is more prominent in eastern China and grain production-consumption balanced areas. This study pioneers the construction of a research framework encompassing “agricultural new quality productive forces, agricultural labor productivity, and grain production resilience,” conducts mediation and heterogeneity analysis to reveal the mechanism of how agricultural new quality productive forces affect grain production resilience. The research conclusion provides new policy implications for promoting the development of agricultural new quality productive forces and consolidating the food security strategy.