Spatial Differences and Distribution Dynamics of China's Comprehensive Food Production Capability

Food security is a core issue for ensuring national economic development, stabilizing food‐related industries, and safeguarding national security. China's food production exhibits significant regional disparities. In‐depth research on these regional differences and their spatial distribution characteristics is of great importance for optimizing resource allocation and formulating targeted policies. Based on data from 31 provinces in China between 2001 and 2023, this paper measures the Comprehensive Food Production Capability across the whole country and the four major regions—East, Central, West, and Northeast—using the entropy method. It also systematically analyzes the dynamic changes, regional disparities, and their sources by combining methods such as the Dagum Gini Coefficient, Kernel Density Estimation, and Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis. The study finds: (1) From 2001 to 2023, China's Comprehensive Food Production Capability has steadily improved, with a significant overall increase, but the disparities between and within regions have gradually expanded, exhibiting obvious imbalance; (2) Regional differences are the primary source of the overall disparity, accounting for 45.79%. The gap between the Northeast and other regions continues to widen, while the gap between the Central and Eastern regions has slightly increased, and the gap between the East and West regions remains stable, showing convergence; (3) Regarding intra‐regional differences, the Eastern region exhibits relatively small and stable internal disparities, the Western region shows a trend of expansion followed by stabilization, while the Central region has significantly expanded; (4) Spatial autocorrelation analysis shows that food production capacity exhibits significant negative spatial correlation at the provincial scale, manifested as “heterogeneous agglomeration” between high and low‐capacity regions. With the advancement of agricultural modernization and policy implementation, regional disparities have gradually intensified, and high‐capacity regions are forming stable clusters. The study indicates that, despite the overall improvement in food production capacity, regional differences are becoming more entrenched. Future efforts should focus on agricultural technological innovation, precise support, and optimal resource allocation. Differentiated policies should be formulated for different regions to achieve balanced regional development and ensure the sustainable security of food supply.