An in-depth examination of the effects of climate change on rice yield in China, encompassing various rice types, is crucial for ensuring the nation’s food security. This study develops an “economy-climate” theoretical model and employs Panel Corrected Standard Error Estimation (PCSE) on panel data spanning from 1978 to 2018, sourced from China’s primary grain-producing regions. The analysis delves into the impact of climate variables, including precipitation, temperature, and sunshine duration, on overall rice production and different rice types. Overall, the findings reveal a nonlinear relationship between precipitation, temperature, sunshine duration, and rice yield, characterized by an “inverted U-shaped” pattern. However, significant variations exist in the effects on different rice types across China’s main grain-producing areas. Increasing precipitation generally enhances early rice production across provinces and also augments mid-season and one-season-late rice production in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hebei, Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Shandong Province. Conversely, it reduces mid-season and one-season-late rice output in Liaoning, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, and Hunan. Sichuan Province sees a rise in temperature favoring early and double-season-late rice production, unlike other provinces. For mid-season and one-season-late rice, temperature increases benefit output in Heilongjiang Province but not in other regions. Additionally, prolonged sunshine duration boosts early and double-season-late rice production across all provinces but does not have the same effect on mid-season and one-season-late rice in China’s primary grain-producing areas.

With the increasing pressure of resource decline and environmental pollution faced by the green transformation of marine fisheries, marine fishery carbon sinks are an increasingly close link to national strategic interests and economic lifelines. It is, therefore, necessary to explore paths for the enhancement and development of the carbon sink capacity of marine fisheries. Based on the economic data of marine fisheries from 2002 to 2021, this paper measures the capacity and characteristics of marine fishery carbon sinks in provincial areas, applies the kernel density estimation method to depict the dynamic evolution of the distribution of absolute differences in marine fishery carbon sinks, and at the same time, identifies the factors influencing the spatial imbalance in the development of marine fishery carbon sinks as well as the spatial spillover effects. The results show the following: (1) From the total amount, the fishery carbon sink capacity of China’s three marine economic circles has fluctuated and increased over the past 20 years, with obvious differences among different circles, and the marine fishery carbon sink capacity of the eastern, northern, and southern marine economic circles has risen sequentially. This trend corresponds to the economic disparities among the three circles, demonstrating a transition from economic to industrial driving effects. (2) From the spatial point of view, the fishery carbon sink capacity shows a trend of increasing year by year, concentrating in the circles, and overflowing between the circles. (3) The results of a partial derivative test further show that among the main influencing factors of marine fishery carbon sinks, capital, labor, and market openness have direct positive effects on marine fishery carbon sinks, and the direct effect of innovation is the strongest, and the significance of the indirect effect of the three circles is weaker compared to the direct effect and total effect. As a result, the carbon sink of China’s marine fisheries has a large room for improvement, and in order to promote the high-quality development of China’s marine fisheries, it is still necessary to accelerate the circulation of resources within the marine economic circle, accelerate the research of fishery technology, actively develop the carbon sink fishery, and enhance the specialization of aquatic product processing.

This study employs an evolutionary game theory framework to analyze the interactive learning, imitation, and strategic evolution among multiple actors within China’s aquatic product traceability system. It focuses on four types of strategic interactions: between fishers and the government, fishers and consumers, fishers who adopt the traceability system and those who do not, and between consumers who purchase traceable aquatic products and those who do not. The evolutionarily stable strategies and equilibrium outcomes in each game depend on the net benefits obtained and the various costs borne by each party. Among these factors, transaction costs within the traceability system play a particularly critical role in shaping stakeholder behavior. The lower the transaction costs, the more likely stakeholders are to adopt strategies that support or enhance the functioning of the system. Therefore, reducing the operational and transaction costs of the traceability system should be a key policy focus for the government. This includes efforts in policy and regulatory development, platform and infrastructure construction, and the improvement of information exchange mechanisms to foster sustainable development in aquaculture.

Introduction: Food production systems are a significant source of carbon emissions, and optimizing agricultural infrastructure is crucial for advancing low-carbon food systems. This study investigates how different configurations of agricultural infrastructure contribute to lower carbon intensity in 30 Chinese provinces between 2013 and 2022. Methods: We employ fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the combined effects of farmland water conservancy, rural transportation, digital infrastructure, agricultural electrification, cultivation scale, and technological progress on agricultural carbon emissions. Results: Our findings reveal that no single infrastructure type is necessary for emission reduction. Instead, two dominant pathways emerge. The scale expansion pathway involves the joint presence of farmland water conservancy, rural transportation, and large-scale grain cultivation. The technological progress pathway combines digital infrastructure, farmland water conservancy, and advances in grain production technology. The technological progress pathway demonstrates slightly stronger consistency (0.9813) than the scale expansion pathway (0.9674). Discussion: Regional analysis shows that scale-driven pathways are more common in southeastern coastal provinces, whereas technology-driven pathways dominate in northwestern and southwestern regions. These findings provide actionable guidance for region-specific, policy-driven low-carbon transitions in Chinese agriculture.