| Summary: | [Objective] Conservation tillage is an important way to promote the sustainable and intensive utilization of cultivated land, cope with the impact of climate change, and promote the transformation of grain production mode. Accurately evaluating the impact of conservation tillage technology adoption on grain production not only can provide empirical evidence for increasing the scale and quality of conservation tillage, but also has important practical significance for ensuring food security. [Methods] Based on the survey data of grain growers from 14 provinces in China, the effect of conservation tillage technology adoption on yield increasing and stabilizing, and its heterogeneity in different regions and under different cropping systems and technology combinations were investigated under the counterfactual framework by using the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model. [Results] (1) Adopting conservation tillage technologies reduces the risk of grain yield reduction while increasing the mean of yield, which shows obvious yield-increasing effect and yield-stabilizing effect. Under the counterfactual assumption, if the farmers who adopt conservation tillage technologies did not do so, their grain mean yield would have reduced by 3.4%, and their risk of yield reduction would have increased by 17.5%. (2) The effect of conservation tillage technology adoption on yield increasing and stabilizing are heterogeneous. The adoption of conservation tillage technologies can enhance the grain mean yield of farmers in the eastern region of China more strongly than that in the central and western regions, and can only reduce the risk of grain yield reduction of farmers in the eastern region. Compared with areas with double cropping and above, the adoption of conservation tillage technologies by farmers in areas with one cropping failed to increase grain yield, but increased the risk of grain yield reduction. (3) Conservation tillage technologies have integrated adoption effect, and the yield-increasing effect and yield-stabilizing effect of straw returning + subsoiling or no-tillage direct seeding combination technology are better than that of straw returning alone. [Conclusion] Adopting conservation tillage technologies can alleviate the food security pressure brought about by the constraints of arable land resources, but it requires matching regional factor endowments, institutional environment, and technology ecological environment as support. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the promotion, service, and research and development capabilities of conservation tillage technology, enhance its applicability and stability, and establish supporting systems and policy systems as soon as possible to fully leverage the role of conservation tillage technology in improving food security.
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