Cultivated land production capacity (PC) is the basis for national food security. Health condition (HC) is an important parameter to indicate the ecological safety of arable land. The policy of “the trinity protection of quantity, quality, and ecology of cultivated land” is one of the important protection directions currently being implemented in China. However, the existing evaluation systems are diverse and overlapping, which mainly focus on the quality and production potential of cultivated land, with less attention paid to the health status and the relationship between them in China. In this study, a comprehensive PC evaluation system including factors such as climate, landform, soil, and utilization was constructed, and an HC evaluation system including internal and external factors was established to support the requirements of the trinity pattern protection policy. These new evaluation systems were applied in Gaoping city, China. The results showed that the average PC index was 1617.35 and ranged between 98.40 and 4321.53, with the largest area of the higher-grade accounting for 36.37% of the total cultivated land. The spatial distribution of PC showed a gradual decrease from the southwest to northeast regions. The average score of the HC of arable land in Gaoping was 79.86 and showed an increasing trend of low in the middle areas and high in the edge regions, which revealed the opposed spatial characteristics between human activity and health status. Approximately 2637.86 ha of the cultivated land was at the imbalance stage, indicating that this is where managers needed to focus. In general, the study offered a reference and a scientific basis for evaluating PC and HC and provided support information for sustainable cultivated land management.

Cultivated land serves as an important resource to ensure national food security, and how to allocate cultivated land reasonably and sustainably is an urgent problem that needs to be solved at present. Therefore, identifying land cultivability from the basic attributes of land and carrying out adaptive management measures in different zones is an effective way. Taking Henan province as a case study area, we proposed a research scheme for the adaptive management of cultivated land use zoning based on land types. First, a three-level land types classification system at the provincial level was established from five aspects—climate, topography, geology, soil properties, and hydrological conditions—and then Henan was divided into 39 first-level units, 4358 second-level units, and 6446 third-level units. On this basis, the changes in the status of land use in Henan province from 2009 to 2018 were analyzed from the four aspects of cultivated land utilization, population, grain yield, and GDP. The amount of cultivated land decreased, while the economy grew, the population increased, and grain yield increased, indicating that it is urgent to pay attention to the problem of cultivated land, and it is necessary to identify the potential space of cultivated land and manage and protect it reasonably. Based on the land types, evaluation of cultivability was carried out, the results showed that the degree of cultivability from high to low presented a transitional spatial distribution state from the east and the south to the middle, the north, and the west. Then superimposing the status of land use, six types of protection and management zones were proposed, and management suggestions were adaptively analyzed. The ideas and methods proposed in this study can be adapted to manage and utilize cultivated land from the perspective of sustainable utilization, which is of great significance for ensuring food security.

The identification of supplementary cultivated land as a reserve resource is of great significance for ensuring implementation of the new mechanism of land occupation and compensation balance in China. Using Jiangsu Province as a case study, here, we use a “multi-period land use change patterns–multi-scenario land use simulation–cultivation suitability evaluation–identification of supplementary cultivated land” framework to explore identification of supplementary cultivated land. A single land use dynamic index and a land use transfer matrix were used to analyze land use pattern changes in Jiangsu Province and showed that the area of cultivated land in Jiangsu Province decreased significantly, mainly by being converted into land used for buildings, and waters and conservancy facilities. A Markov-FLUS model was used to simulate and predict land use quantity and spatial distribution under four scenarios: an inertial development scenario, a cultivated land protection scenario, an economic development priority scenario, and an ecological protection priority scenario. Sixteen factor indicators were selected from the four dimensions of natural land quality, social economy, management, and the ecological condition of the land, and the degree of suitability of cultivated land in Jiangsu was evaluated by multi-factor stepwise correction. The southern and central parts of Jiangsu had higher suitability, while the northern part had lower suitability. By superimposing these data on current land use data from 2023, the plots of land that were converted to or from cultivated land were identified. Combined with the suitability degree, the potential three major categories and eight types of sources for supplementary cultivated land, totaling 29,015.92 km², were identified, along with their distribution. A time sequence arrangement for these sources was initially set up. Corresponding management suggestions were proposed based on the adaptability of different supplementary cultivated land sources, with the aim of providing scientific references for the acquisition of supplementary cultivated land sources in the implementation of the national and local government’s farmland balance management.

Food security is a fundamental issue that has long been of great concern, and cultivated land resources are the core elements of food security. In recent years, the problem of “non-agriculturalization” and “non-grain” conversion of cultivated land has become prominent. The need for further strict control of cultivated land use has gained significant attention from the government and academia. Recently, it has been proposed in China that all forms of cultivated land occupation should be integrated into the management policy for balancing cultivated land occupation and reclamation. In this study, the concept of provincial-level land-type classification, along with agricultural land potential productivity evaluation, is adopted to determine the optimal scheme for balancing cultivated land occupation and reclamation. Thus, an analysis of the optimization scheme for implementing the cultivated land occupation and reclamation balance policy in Heilongjiang, along with a macro-level layout of this balance scheme, is carried out at the provincial level. The results show that the land-type classification system constructed from five dimensions—climatic conditions, geomorphic conditions, geological conditions, edaphic conditions, and hydrologic conditions—as well as the agricultural land potential productivity evaluation system constructed based on land types, can effectively identify the potential cultivated land utilization space in Heilongjiang Province. Based on the zoning of land suitable for farming, the cultivated land in unsuitable farming areas in Heilongjiang should be transferred out (403.01 km²) and, according to the principle of the balancing cultivated land occupation and reclamation policy, the non-cultivated land in highly and moderately suitable farming areas should be transferred in (249.80 km² and 163.39 km², respectively) to achieve balance. The results can provide reference for the implementation of the cultivated land occupation and reclamation policy at the provincial level, as well as for promoting the implementation of the strategy of “storing grain in the land”.