Agricultural Insurance as a Catalyst for Climate Resilience and Sustainable Grain Production: Evidence From Chinese Farm Households

ABSTRACT Fostering the coordinated development between grain yield growth and rural household agricultural income growth is of critical importance to boosting farmers' motivation for grain production and upholding national food security. Based on survey data from 910 grain planting households in Shandong Province, China, this article empirically analyzes the impact of agricultural insurance on the coordinated development of increased grain production and increased farmer income. The research results show: (1) Agricultural insurance exerts a significant positive effect on the coordinated development of grain yield growth and agricultural income increase for rural households. Specifically, relative to non‐insured farmers, those with agricultural insurance coverage see a 3.76‐unit improvement in the coupling coordination degree between grain yield growth and agricultural income growth. (2) Agricultural insurance promotes the coordinated development of grain production and agricultural income by incentivizing farmers to adopt agricultural innovation technologies; at the same time, the level of agricultural production knowledge of farmers plays a positive regulatory role in the process of agricultural insurance, affecting farmers' adoption of agricultural innovation technologies. (3) From the perspective of sample estimation by different operational scales of farmers, for farmers with an agricultural operation scale of more than 5 acres, agricultural insurance can significantly promote the coordinated development of grain production increase and agricultural income increase for farmers, but this impact is not significant for farmers with an operation scale of less than 5 acres; from the perspective of sample estimation by different types of farmers, agricultural insurance can significantly promote the coordinated development of grain production increase and agricultural income increase for part‐time farmers and pure farmers. Study reports climate resilience implications for production and agriculture related income.