The quality of farmland construction and the ability to resist farmland disaster risks are related to the national food security strategy. Clarifying the impact and mechanisms of high-standard farmland construction on disaster reduction is of great significance for promoting high-standard farmland construction and agricultural disaster reduction and stable production. Based on panel data from 31 provinces (cities) in China, the study uses the continuous double difference method to analyze the impact and mechanisms of high-standard farmland construction on disaster reduction. The results show that: (1) High-standard farmland construction can significantly reduce the impact of natural agricultural disasters, particularly in reducing the affected rate, disaster rate, total crop failure rate, and vulnerability. According to the estimated coefficients, high-standard farmland construction can reduce the affected rate, disaster rate, total crop failure rate, and disaster vulnerability by 0.263, 0.148, 0.166, and 0.468 units, respectively. These results remain consistent even after a series of robustness tests, including changing the policy intervention time, replacing core explanatory variables, considering serial correlation issues, lagging control variables by one period, and expanding the data sample. (2) From the perspective of the heterogeneity of natural disaster types, high-standard farmland construction has a greater mitigating effect on droughts compared to floods. This is mainly due to the improvement of water resource utilization efficiency and the promotion of water-saving irrigation technology. From the perspective of the heterogeneity of agricultural functional areas, due to the weaker agricultural production conditions in non-grain main producing areas, their ability to resist natural disasters is also weaker, making the disaster reduction promotion effect of high-standard farmland construction more significant for them. From the perspective of the heterogeneity of regional economic development levels, the financially stronger eastern regions have more construction funds and supportive policies, making the effect of high-standard farmland construction on reducing the impact of agricultural natural disasters in the eastern regions more significant. (3) Mechanism testing shows that high-standard basic farmland construction affects agricultural natural disasters through three mechanisms: ecological regulation, comprehensive prevention, and improvement of production conditions, with mediating effects of 24.32%, 26.47%, and 13.65%, respectively. The study suggests continuing to strengthen the construction of high-standard agriculture in various regions, carrying out high-standard farmland construction according to local conditions based on regional climate characteristics and water and soil conditions, and reinforcing the supporting measures for high-standard farmland construction. This will further consolidate the promotion of disaster reduction by high-standard farmland construction. The research provides a reference for improving high-standard farmland construction and enhancing farmland disaster reduction capabilities.