It is crucial to improve the compensation mechanism for the benefits of the main grain producing areas in order to guarantee grain security. This is currently one of the pivotal reform agendas. To provide a scientific basis for ensuring the economic effectiveness of grain production, based on a panel data of 31 provinces from 2001 to 2020, this paper constructed a staple grain self-sufficiency pressure index, analyzed the spatial and temporal characteristics of self-sufficiency pressure, and explored the benefit compensation mechanism of the main grain-producing areas. Results show that: 1) The total consumption of staple grains was 72.95 percent during the period from 2001 to 2020, with a decrease in consumption for food and an increase in consumption for feed, industry, seeds and wastage. The production of staple grains in the principal marketing and balancing areas is mainly used to meet food requirements; 2) The national self-sufficiency pressure experiences the changes of increasing, then decreasing, but the overall trend is decreasing, with an annual average of 1.01, which belongs to the mild pressure zone; and 3) The spatial pattern of the self-sufficiency pressure shows obvious regional differences, with the self-sufficiency pressure in the main production areas being generally low but partly high, while the self-sufficiency pressure in the balancing and main marketing areas is high and continues to increase. In this regard, it is essential to implement a dynamic approach to the regional division of grain production and marketing. This necessitates the establishment of interprovincial and intraprovincial horizontal benefit compensation mechanisms, which should be based on the principles of “whoever contributes more to self-sufficiency will contribute more” and “whoever contributes more to self-sufficiency will be rewarded more”. In addition, the construction of an innovative benefit compensation mechanism should be accelerated, and scientific planning should be made for the grain industry in different grain-producing areas.