Does the Policy of Decoupled Subsidies Improve the Agricultural Economic Resilience?—Evidence from China’s Main Corn Producing Regions

Abstract

Various forms of agricultural subsidy policies often have a significant impact on the development of the agricultural economy and also shape the differentiated spatial pattern of regional agricultural economic resilience, while research on the evolution process of agricultural economic resilience and its influencing mechanisms is still very scarce. This study is based on the impact of China’s cancellation of the temporary corn storage policy on corn prices in 2016. By using an economic resilience analysis framework, we selected the indicators of total agricultural output value and disposable income of farmers to measure the agricultural economic resilience of various cities in Jilin Province and analyzed the characteristics and causes of the spatio-temporal change in agricultural economic resilience in Jilin Province from 2008 to 2021. The results show the following: (1) The transition from price and subsidy integration policy to decoupled subsidy policy helps to shape stronger regional agricultural economic resilience, but due to factors such as farmer policy dependence, low international corn prices, severe oversupply in the domestic corn market, and the suddenness of policy changes, there was a short-term decline in agricultural economic resilience in Jilin Province in the early stage of the decoupled subsidy policy (2016–2017), which rapidly increased after 2017. (2) The agricultural economic resilience levels of cities in Jilin Province showed different spatial differentiation characteristics at different stages within the study period, and the central region, as an important corn production area in Jilin Province, had significant changes in agricultural economic resilience. (3) During the execution of the price and subsidy integration policy, the enhancement of agricultural input capacity and agricultural output capacity helped to improve regional agricultural economic resilience; during the execution of the decoupled subsidy policy, the government’s support for agriculture and the potential of rural markets had a significant impact on the improvement of agricultural economic resilience. At the same time, the interaction and enhancement effect between influencing factors also had a profound impact on agricultural economic resilience.