Agricultural technology and diversification to mitigate climate change-related issues in Chinese rice production: A farmers’ perspective

<p>Agricultural technology (agri-technology) and diversification (agri-diversification) can advance sustainable agriculture and food security amid climate change, and combining them may amplify benefits. Yet farmers' knowledge and adoption remain poorly understood, limiting scalability. Here, we interviewed 1,352 rice farmers across three Chinese provinces spanning a climatic gradient. Farmers perceived climate change-related challenges mainly as production issues, with 82% reporting rising pest occurrence and 42% reporting health issues. Four of five agri-technology categories were both well known and widely adopted (&amp;gt;91% and &amp;gt;61%, respectively). By contrast, only three of seven agri-diversification categories were widely known (&amp;gt;64%), with most practices below 25% awareness. County-level factors—temperature, per capita gross domestic product and farmland fragmentation—were associated with awareness and adoption for many agri-diversification practices but few agri-technologies. Agri-diversification therefore remains under-recognized and underused, and depends more on local conditions than agri-technology. Targeted policy should promote the co-benefits of implementing both strategies together.</p>