Climate extremes and grain green productivity in China: buffering effects of agricultural insurance and high-standard farmland

Abstract

Extreme climate shocks are increasingly reshaping the sustainability, resilience, and environmental performance of grain production systems, particularly in countries facing the dual challenge of safeguarding food security and accelerating agricultural green transformation. This study investigates how extreme climate risk affects grain green total factor productivity (GGTFP) in China and whether adaptation-oriented policy instruments can mitigate these adverse effects. Using provincial panel data for 31 Chinese regions from 2001 to 2023, we measure GGTFP with a Super-SBM Global Malmquist–Luenberger index that incorporates grain output as the desirable output and carbon emissions and agricultural non-point source pollution as undesirable outputs. We further construct a composite extreme climate risk index based on four types of extreme events: extreme low temperature, extreme high temperature, extreme rainfall, and extreme drought. Econometric estimates show that China’s GGTFP increased by an average of 1.7% annually during the study period, mainly driven by green technological progress. However, extreme climate risk exhibited an overall upward trend and significantly inhibited GGTFP. Among different climate hazards, extreme rainfall and extreme drought had stronger negative effects than extreme temperature events, suggesting that water-related climate shocks are particularly detrimental to green grain production. The adverse impact of extreme climate risk was more pronounced in high-relief regions and non-major grain-producing areas, revealing substantial spatial heterogeneity in climate vulnerability. Further analysis indicates that agricultural insurance and high-standard farmland development both significantly attenuate the negative effect of extreme climate risk on GGTFP, with interaction coefficients of 0.040 and 0.037, respectively. These findings suggest that risk-sharing mechanisms and climate-resilient farmland infrastructure can help stabilize green productivity under increasing climate uncertainty. This study provides empirical evidence on the green productivity consequences of multi-hazard climate risks and highlights the importance of integrating agricultural insurance, farmland infrastructure improvement, food security, and environmental protection into climate-resilient agricultural development strategies.