Transformations in productive forces have significant impacts on grain production capacity.Based on the panel data from 30 provinces in China during 2013-2022，the study constructs an analytical framework of “new quality production factors-new quality industrial forms-scientific and technological innovation-green development”，and applies the dynamic Qualitative Comparative Analysis （QCA） to explore the path and change of agricultural new quality productivity to improve grain production capacity.The results indicate that individual factors of agricultural new quality productive forces are not necessary conditions for improving grain production capacity，but they exhibit notable dynamic effect. Three pathways are identified for enhancing grain production capacity：the upgrading type of intelligent digital application industry，the innovative configuration type of production factors，and the deep integration of industry-academia-research-application type.Temporally， these paths show a U-shaped evolution；regionally，major grain-producing areas exhibit path dependence and self-reinforcing trends in capacity improvement，while grain production-consumption balance areas and major grain-consuming areas display strong preferential effects.The findings suggest that attention should be paid to the coordination and synergy among elements of agricultural new productive forces in the grain production system.Different grain-producing regions should focus on fostering positive interactions between new agricultural productive forces and grain production，and explore context-specific pathways to enhance grain production capacity.