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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1524874

How Does Agricultural Insurance Influence Grain Production Scale? -An Income-Mediated Perspective

Provisionally accepted
Dainan Hou Dainan Hou 1Xin Wang Xin Wang 2,3*
  • 1 School of Business, Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China
  • 2 College of Life Science, Longyan University, Longyan, China
  • 3 Chinese International College, Dhurakij Pundit University, Lak Si District, Bangkok, Thailand

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Agricultural insurance has become a vital instrument in risk diversification, loss compensation, and farmer support, with China emerging as the largest agricultural insurance market globally by premium volume. However, the extent to which agricultural insurance influences grain production scale and the underlying mechanisms remain insufficiently explored. Differentiating itself from previous studies, this paper conducts a rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis of how agricultural insurance affects grain planting scale. It further examines the mediating role of farmers' income in this process, providing novel insights into the complex dynamics between agricultural insurance and production behavior. This study applies the von Neumann-Morgenstern expected utility model, coupled with theories on economies of scale, technology diffusion, and rational choice, to examine the theoretical links between agricultural insurance, farmers' income, and grain production scale. Using panel data from 27 Chinese provinces between 2011 and 2021, analyzed through fixed-effects and mediation models, the study finds that agricultural insurance positively, albeit moderately, impacts the scale of grain production, with farmers' income serving as a partial mediating factor. Based on these findings, we recommend expanding agricultural insurance coverage, developing a multi-level insurance framework, and enhancing insurance protection levels to bolster sustainable agricultural development and food security in China.

    Keywords: Agricultural insurance, Grain production scale, Income mediation, sustainable agriculture, China

    Received: 08 Nov 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Hou and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xin Wang, College of Life Science, Longyan University, Longyan, China

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