Driven by both natural and anthropogenic factors, farmland abandonment and recultivation constitute complex and widespread global phenomena that impact the ecological environment and society. In the Inner Mongolia Yellow River Basin (IMYRB), a critical tension lies between agricultural production and ecological conservation, characterized by dynamic bidirectional transitions that hold significant implications for the harmony of human–nature relations and the advancement of ecological civilization. With the development of remote sensing, it has become possible to rapidly and accurately extract farmland changes and monitor its vegetation restoration status. However, mapping abandoned farmland presents significant challenges due to its scattered and heterogeneous distribution across diverse landscapes. Furthermore, subjectivity in questionnaire-based data collection compromises the precision of farmland abandonment monitoring. This study aims to extract crop phenological metrics, map farmland abandonment, and recultivation dynamics in the IMYRB and assess post-transition vegetation changes. We used Landsat time-series data to detect the land-use changes and vegetation responses in the IMYRB. The Farmland Abandonment and Recultivation Extraction Index (FAREI) was developed using crop phenology spectral features. Key crop-specific phenological indicators, including sprout, peak, and wilting stages, were extracted from annual MODIS NDVI data for 2020. Based on these key nodes, the Landsat data from 1999 to 2022 was employed to map farmland abandonment and recultivation. Vegetation recovery trajectories were further analyzed by the Mann–Kendall test and the Theil–Sen estimator. The results showed rewarding accuracy for farmland conversion mapping, with overall precision exceeding 79%. Driven by ecological restoration programs, rural labor migration, and soil salinization, two distinct phases of farmland abandonment were identified, 87.9 kha during 2002–2004 and 105.14 kha during 2016–2019, representing an approximate 19.6% increase. Additionally, the post-2016 surge in farmland recultivation was primarily linked to national food security policies and localized soil amelioration initiatives. Vegetation restoration trends indicate significant greening over the past two decades, with particularly significant increases observed between 2011 and 2022. In the future, more attention should be paid to the trade-off between ecological protection and food security. Overall, this study developed a novel method for monitoring farmland dynamics, offering critical insights to inform adaptive ecosystem management and advance ecological conservation and sustainable development in ecologically fragile semi-arid regions.

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Myanmar, an agriculture-based economy, is one of the most important agricultural countries in mainland Southeast Asia. Although previous studies have documented changes in agricultural land-use and cropping patterns, trends in farmland area, cropping patterns, and food sufficiency across Myanmar’s 14 states/regions remain limited. This study addresses these gaps by using land-cover data from the global 30 m dynamic dataset and statistical data from 2000 to 2025, and household surveys from selected areas. GIS-based spatial analysis, trend analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance were applied to analyze both the direction and magnitude of farmland and cropping pattern changes over time. The results showed that Myanmar’s farmland area increased significantly (τ = +0.52, p < 0.01), expanding by 23.6% over the study period. Double cropping remained an important system, increasing by 55.9%. In the central dry zone, sufficient water availability showed the strongest effect on crop production and farmland area (F = 11.191, p < 0.001, η²p = 0.037), followed by soil fertility loss (F = 10.263, p < 0.001, η²p = 0.034). The analysis estimated that domestic consumption requirements were approximately 7.97 million tons of rice, 3.12 million tons of wheat, and 0.42 million tons of maize. These findings can support sustainable farmland use planning and inform food security policy decisions in Myanmar.