<p>Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has emerged as an agricultural system solution to the twin challenges of climate change and food security. The adoption rate of Climate-smart agriculture practices (CSAPs) by farmers in China remains low. To our knowledge, despite the significant progress made in farmers’ adoption of CSA, it still needs to be further researched whether cooperatives can promote this adoption and whether the facilitation effect on farmers is the same with different resource endowments. To further enrich the existing research, the impact of cooperatives on CSA adoption was examined in this study, using cross-sectional data collected from 527 rice farmers in 3 provinces of China. The endogenous switching probit (ESP) model was used to address the sample selection bias associated with voluntary cooperative choices. The results show that cooperatives have a significant impact on CSA adoption probability. The treatment effects of cooperatives on the adoption of straw incorporation (SI), variety improvement (VI), and reduction of Agri-chemicals (ROAC) by members and non-members were 61.7% and 35.1%, 42.4% and 24.3%, 4.1% and 73%, respectively. Among the three CSAPs, variety improvement is easier to adopt for most farmers, and straw incorporation is more suitable for large-scale farmers with certain economic strength. The policy implications of this study include prioritizing the positive impact of agricultural cooperatives, focusing on household heterogeneity and regional specificity, considering agricultural subsidies in policy implementation, and enhancing coordination between CSA and related agricultural strategies. The results can not only improve CSA research but also provide a reference and guidance for the development of CSA in countries or regions with similar national conditions and agricultural development foundations to China.</p>