<p>Strengthening grain systems against climate-related disturbances is essential for food security, particularly in a country such as China, where feeding a large population must be balanced with limited arable resources. Using panel data for 31 provincial-level regions over 1997–2022, this study assesses resilience in China’s grain sector through a super-efficiency SBM approach. It then investigates regional inequality, temporal distributional change, spatial dependence, and interregional transmission by combining the Dagum Gini coefficient with Moran’s I, Markov transition analysis, kernel density analysis, and a spatial Durbin specification. The empirical evidence indicates that overall resilience in grain production increased during the sample period, although the national average remained at a relatively low level. Regional gaps also expanded, with within-group variation and transvariation contributing most to the disparity. In addition, provinces exhibited significant positive spatial dependence, with evident clustering among both high-resilience and low-resilience areas. The distributional results further point to a polarization tendency, while the transition analysis suggests strong persistence and limited short-term upward mobility; however, provinces located near higher-resilience areas were more likely to move to a better state. Spatial econometric results further show that agricultural technicians, fiscal support, mechanization, irrigation, and industrial upgrading influence resilience differently across regions. Overall, the results point to the importance of differentiated policy design, stronger cross-regional coordination, and continued technological upgrading in strengthening grain production resilience and safeguarding long-term food security.</p>