Measuring the Level and Potential of China's Food Security Resilience in the Context of Climate Change

Intensifying global climate change poses a severe threat to agricultural production, and strengthening China's food security resilience is therefore of great practical significance for safeguarding food security in China. This study constructs an evaluation system comprising 17 indicators across four dimensions-supply availability, consumption access, food utilization, and system stability-and applies the entropy-TOPSIS method, the Dagum Gini coefficient, kernel density estimation, Markov chains, an obstacle degree model, and the GM(1,1) grey prediction model to measure the level and potential of food security resilience across 31 provinces in China. The results show that China's food security resilience exhibits a steady upward trend, with the composite score rising from 0.2240 in 2010 to 0.3504 in 2024. Regional disparities are dominated by inter-group differences, whose average contribution rate reaches 70.13%, and the overall Gini coefficient declines gradually. Resilience shows a significant positive spatial autocorrelation throughout, with the global Moran's I remaining significant at the 1% level in all years. Transitions among resilience levels are characterized by "club convergence", with the high-level club being the most stable, and neighborhood states significantly condition local transitions. The grain self-sufficiency rate, rural broadband access per capita, and the soil erosion control rate are the leading obstacle factors; at the dimension level, the obstacle degree of supply availability resilience rises and ranks highest by 2024. Panel econometric results further confirm that flood shocks and temperature variability significantly undermine food security resilience, providing direct evidence for the climate change context. Forecasts indicate that national food security resilience will rise to around 0.42 by 2029, with the eastern region maintaining its lead; Tianjin and Beijing rank at the top, while Tibet is the only province projected to decline. The findings of this study provide a reference for the Chinese government in formulating policies to enhance food security resilience and offer a Chinese solution for promoting global food security.