The non-grain production rate (NGPR) of cropland is a grave threat to global grain and food supply, and has been a hot issue across the world. However, few scholars explored the impacts of the NGPRs of different cropland types, such as those of paddy land and irrigated land in the same region. Thus, according to the third land survey data, this research first estimated the NGPRs of cropland, paddy land, irrigated land, and dry land at different scales in Shandong Province, China in 2019. Then, their spatial characteristics at a county scale were identified by combining the standard deviation ellipse model and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Finally, the potential driving factors of the NGPR of cropland were explored with the geographical weight regression model. Results are as follows: (1) The NGPR of cropland is at relatively lower level in Shandong Province and is dominated by that of irrigated land, and the NGPR of dry land is higher than those of other cropland types; (2) Significant regional differences exist in the NGPR of cropland, with profound severity in the southeast and much lower in the northwest; (3) At the provincial scale, the total power of agricultural machinery per capita and utilization degree of cropland factors can relieve the NGPR of cropland in nearly the entire research area. The proportion of GDP of the primary industry in GDP, urban population rate, and DEM are the main obstacles for NGPR decrease. At the county scale, the influences of driving factors varied across regions. This research can provide targeted and regional differentiated references for policy improvement and NGPR management.

Cultivated land systems have an enormous ecological function value with respect to water conversation, nutrient circulation and climate regulation. The people’s cognition, willingness and behavior may prove to be pivotal in ecologically protecting cultivated land. The purpose of this paper is to explore suppliers’ and demanders’ cognition, willingness and behavior with respect to the ecological protection of cultivated land. The second-order structural equation model was employed, and a five-point Likert scale was designed. Based on data obtained from a questionnaire surveyed on a sample of 460 (farming and no-farming households) from Caidian district, Wuhan, China, the results show that within/between suppliers and demanders, there are mismatches in willingness as well as behavior to ecologically protect cultivated land. In the suppliers group and in the demanders group, there are mismatches with respect to the interactive mechanism of cognition, willingness and behavior in the ecological protection of cultivated land. Three factors, subjective norms, attitude toward behavior, and perceived behavior control, affect willingness and behavior with respect to protection differently between the suppliers and the demanders. The “intermediary” effects of willingness and behavior in the ecological protection of cultivated land only appear in the demanders model, and are not significant in the suppliers model. In addition, another finding was that farmers’ behavior as suppliers and demanders of ecological protection of cultivated land were mismatched. The article contributes firstly to exploring the ecological protection of cultivated land from the perspective of suppliers’ and demanders’ subjective psychology. Farmers with “dual roles” as suppliers and demanders should pay more attention to the ecological protection of cultivated land. Their cognition and skills in the ecological protection of cultivated land are in need of improvement. It is also necessary to bridge the gap between suppliers and demanders; access to the knowledge of the ecological value of cultivated land will incentivize their behavior with respect to the ecological protection of cultivated land.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of multifunctional cultivated land protection based on the value engineering theory. The study area is the Wuhan Metropolitan Area. Entropy method, comprehensive index method, opportunity cost method and most suitable regional method were employed. The coefficients for importance of functions, for costs, and for values in production, social and ecological of cultivated land were measured. Significant spatial differences in the effectiveness of multifunctional cultivated land protection were found. According to the effectiveness of multifunctional cultivated land protection, the study area can be divided into the following three regions: the “most suitable region”, where the functions of cultivated land and their costs are matched in most parts of the study area; the “optimization region for functional structure”, mostly located in the Jianghan Plain, where the structure of multifunctional cultivated land needs further optimization; and the “improvement region for functional level”, including the mountainous areas, such as Yingshan and Wuxue in the East, and the municipal districts, such as Wuhan and Ezhou, where the potential for improving level of multifunctional cultivated land is relatively large. The article contributes to firstly introducing value engineering theory into the research of cultivated land protection, linking demand to supply of functions of cultivated land. We suggest that different policies might be implemented to optimize the spatial layout of cultivated land protection, and to manifest and coordinate multiple functions of cultivated land. It is vital to improve the use efficiency of funds for multifunctional cultivated land protection, and in the end to realize effective protection of cultivated land in quantity, quality and ecology at a lower cost in a sustainable way.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the effects of multifunctional rural land use (MRLU) on residents’ wellbeing. A questionnaire survey on 805 rural residents in 64 villages of the Xinzhou District of Wuhan city in China, and estimators of OLS, ordered logit, and ordered probit were employed. The Shannon’s H index and Simpson’s Reciprocal Index are used to measure MRLU and the life satisfaction approach is used to measure wellbeing. An inverted-U pattern is observed in the relationship between MRLU and wellbeing, and another finding of the study is the threshold of MRLU. The article contributes to the literature by integrating MRLU into wellbeing analysis from a spatial-separated form, and deepens the relationship between MRLU and the residents’ wellbeing. MRLU is characterized by differences and a moderation, which can provide a reference for profiling rural land use planning and for designing land-use policy, and for prompting rural sustainable development.