Agricultural Green Development as a Buffer Against Growing-Season Climate Extremes: Evidence from China’s Yellow River Basin

Agricultural green development (AGD) is usually evaluated by its average productivity and environmental effects, but its value may be more visible when crop production is exposed to severe growing-season climate stress. This study examines whether AGD acts as a state-dependent buffer against climate-related output losses. Using a balanced panel of 56 prefecture-level cities in China’s Yellow River Basin from 2011 to 2024, we construct a Crop Extreme Stress Index (CESI) from daily meteorological records and estimate a two-stage least squares model with a crop-group shift-share instrument and crop-group price controls. The results show that AGD has a positive average association with crop output, but its marginal payoff is substantially larger in high-exposure years. In the preferred interaction specification, a one-standard-deviation increase in AGD is associated with approximately 2.8% higher crop output under high exposure. Quantile regressions further suggest that this protective effect is more visible in weaker output states. Channel consistency tests indicate that resilience capacity and crop diversification are more relevant under high exposure, although these results should not be interpreted as causal mediation. The findings suggest that AGD should be assessed not only by average productivity gains, but also by its capacity to reduce losses and stabilize output under growing-season climate extremes.