Over-intensification of cultivated land can often result in intensification traps for food production. Ever increasingly outstanding negative effects can also threaten the national food security and agricultural economy. The sustainable intensification of cultivated land use (SICLU) can be expected to balance the economic and ecological benefits of agricultural production. However, it is unclear whether the rural labor transfer on SICLU in the context of the rapid development of new urban and rural revitalization. In this study, the super-efficiency Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model was utilized to evaluate the SICLU level in the 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 1990 to 2020. The theoretical connotation of SICLU was combined to further clarify the impact of rural labor transfer on SICLU using a threshold model. The results showed: 1) The SICLU level shared a general trend of first decreasing and then increasing from 1990 to 2020. Specifically, the mean value of SICLU showed a fluctuating downward trend, which decreased from 0.448 in 1990 to 0.393 in 2002, with an average annual decline rate of -1.735%. The mean value of SICLU showed a fluctuating upward trend after 2002. Its average value increased from 0.448 in 2002 to 0.551 in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 8.627%. The SICLU level was ranked in the descending order of the Northeast > West > East > Central regions. There was a large difference among regions. 2) The empirical analysis with the panel threshold model showed that there was a significant trend of a U-shaped curve for the influence of rural labor transfer on SICLU. Once the rural labor transfer was lower than the threshold value (0.351), there was an inhibitory effect on the development of SICLU. By contrast, the rural labor transfer promoted the development of SICLU, when the rural labor transfer was higher than the threshold value (0.351). Meanwhile, robustness testing was carried out to adjust the core explanatory variables, sample data, and measurement model. 3) The heterogeneity analysis showed that there was an unbalanced impact of rural labor transfer on the SICLU, due to the difference of regional agricultural economy and natural endowment. In agriculturally developed areas and plain areas, the rural labor transfer was easy to achieve the factor transfer and efficiency improvement, which greatly contributed to the high SICLU level. However, there was no significant in the less developed agriculture and mountainous areas. Consequently, the non-agricultural transfer of rural redundant labor force should be reasonably modified to realize the sustainable intensive transformation of cultivated land use. The land transfer market and intermediary service organization should be optimized to realize the large-scale management of agricultural production; Financial subsidies and credit services can also be provided for the main body of direct management of cultivated land, in order to alleviate the financial constraints. Much attention should be paid to the cultivation of a new quality agricultural labor force to optimize the allocation structure of agricultural factors. Moreover, the regional economy and natural endowment should also be considered to explore the sustainable-intensive path of cultivated land use suitable for regional conditions.

Facility agriculture is one of the most crucial ways to implement the Greater Food concept in modern agriculture. The spatiotemporal evolution and distribution of facility agriculture land can also be essential to optimize its spatial layout for the successful implementation of national food security strategies. In this study, a three-dimensional classification framework of “Human-Land-Region” was constructed for facility agriculture land in urban agglomerations of China. The spatial layout of facility agriculture land was also balanced to match with the labor intensity and amount of facility agriculture land. In this study, the study area was taken as the 19 national-level urban agglomerations in the 14th Five-Year Plan. The parameters were then calculated, including the land area per capita area, geographic concentration, and the Moran’s I of the 19 urban agglomerations for facility agriculture during the period of 2013—2021. Then the spatiotemporal evolution of facility agriculture land was obtained to evaluate the three-dimensional framework in urban agglomerations on the global scale. The typical cities were determined to combine the three-dimensional evaluation, geographic zoning, and the development level of urban agglomerations. Finally, four urban agglomerations were identified as the typical cases, such as the Central Plains, Chengdu-Chongqing, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Mid-southern Liaoning. The modified gravity model and core-edge analysis were also applied to explore the gravitational relationship of facility agriculture among cities within these four urban agglomerations. The facility agriculture land was realized at a downscaled scale from the whole situation to the inner part of typical urban agglomerations. The results indicate that the facility agriculture land in urban agglomerations decreased by 446 000 hectares between 2013 and 2021. There was the regional divergence, in which the Northeast and Central regions shared smaller scales of facility agriculture land, while the South generally had more extensive areas than the North. From 2018 onwards, the distribution of facility agriculture land was shifted from a highly centralized to a slightly decentralized pattern. The urban agglomerations with “high-high clustering” and “low-high clustering” were predominantly found in the eastern regions in various periods, indicating significant spatial dependence. While other areas showed more dispersed distributions. According to the “Human-Land-Region” analysis framework, the layout of facility agricultural land in urban agglomerations was divided into four types: “Growing population with reduced and decentralized lands”, “Growing population with increased and centralized lands”, “Shrinking population with reduced and centralized lands” and “Shrinking population with reduced and decentralized lands”. Urban agglomerations with the first type were found in the relatively slow development in facility agriculture, with a weakening industry pull. While those with the second type were achieved large-scale operations in the concentration of resources. Two main types were accounted for a total of 73.68%, which was the leading type of facility agricultural land in urban agglomeration. There was the severe reduction in the scale of facility agriculture land over the past decade, with a spatial divergence from population changes. Recent trends showed a shift from the centralized supply towards risk diversification. Perennial vegetable plots can be expected to establish in the medium and large cities. The balance between local production and external supply can be strategically designed for facility agriculture within urban agglomerations, in order to enhance the resilience of the supply chain.