The impact of farmland management adaptive practices on grain production capacity under water resource constraints

Non-agriculturization of water resources encroaches on agricultural water, imposing resource constraints and “growth resistance” on grain production. Therefore, under stringent water resource constraints, identifying and effectively implementing farmland management adaptive practices to enhance grain production capacity represents a critical pathway for fostering synergistic development between agricultural water use and grain production systems. Based on survey data from 1207 grain households in Shandong Province, this study employs a propensity score matching approach to establish a counterfactual framework. This enables an empirical analysis of how farmland management adaptive practices affect grain production capacity among growers, with respect to both output expansion and income growth. The main findings are as follows: (1) Farmland management adaptive practices significantly enhance the grain production capacity, increasing output by 9.54% and income by 8.50%. This indicates that adaptive measures have partially overcome the “growth resistance” imposed by water resource constraints. (2) Farmland management adaptive practices enhance irrigation reliability and reduce farmland management costs, thereby promoting grain production capacity. (3) Proactive behavior exerts a greater impact and can facilitate increased grain output and profitability, whereas passive adaptive behavior significantly impacts only grain output. (4) The adaptive behavior of small-scale farmers has a significant effect in increasing grain output and profitability, whereas for large-scale farmers, the benefits have been notably limited to grain output increases alone. Based on these conclusions，this study suggests that the Chinese government should differentially implement irrigation infrastructure investment and adaptation incentive policies across farm scales to enhance grain production capacity under water resource constraints.