Fiscal Support for Agriculture and Agricultural Economic Resilience: Empirical Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration

Agricultural economic resilience plays a pivotal role in the integrated development of agriculture and rural areas, and carries great significance for ensuring national food security and advancing sustainable agricultural development in the context of complex risks and challenges. Using panel data covering 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2011 to 2023, this paper empirically investigates the impact mechanism of fiscal support for agriculture on agricultural economic resilience. The results demonstrate that fiscal support for agriculture in the Yangtze River Delta exerts a significant positive effect on agricultural economic resilience, especially with a pronounced promoting influence on resistance capacity. Mechanism analysis indicates that fiscal support for agriculture indirectly affects agricultural economic resilience through channels including agricultural industrial agglomeration and the urban–rural income gap. Accordingly, to strengthen agricultural economic resilience, it is necessary to optimize the allocation and expenditure structure of fiscal funds, adopt differentiated strategies with dynamic and timely adjustments, allocate funds to boost agricultural industrial agglomeration, enhance investment in human capital to narrow the urban–rural income gap, and facilitate sustainable agricultural development.