Climate endowment and grain production: empirical evidence from 325 China cities

Climate change has triggered profound transformations in the natural conditions for agricultural production, posing substantial practical challenges to high-quality agricultural development and presenting a range of theoretical puzzles that require re-examination and exploration within conventional agricultural production and security frameworks. Based on the recognized sensitivity of agriculture to climatic conditions, this study conceptualizes climatic endowment through the lenses of factor endowment theory and natural productivity. We construct a comprehensive indicator system for evaluating climatic endowment and develop a theoretical framework to analyze its impact on grain production. The regional heterogeneity of this relationship is examined across different geographical areas, functional grain zones, and both sides of the Hu Line. The findings demonstrate that: (1) climatic endowment significantly enhances grain production, a conclusion that remains robust after excluding atypical samples, employing alternative estimation methods, and replacing core explanatory variables; moreover, it exerts significantly positive yet differential effects across various grain crops; (2) the impact displays substantial regional heterogeneity depending on geographical location and functional grain zoning, with crop-specific effects also showing distinct spatial variations attributable to the interaction between crop-specific climatic requirements and regional climatic characteristics. Finally, policy implications are derived from these findings.