Cultivated land resources are the core elements for ensuring food security, economic development and social stability. In June 2024, the "Food Security Guarantee Law of the People's Republic of China" stipulated that the system of balancing occupation and compensation would be expanded from only targeting non-agricultural construction occupation of cultivated land to covering various situations where cultivated land is occupied, such as non-agricultural construction and agricultural structure adjustment. A new principle has also been established for the sources of supplementary cultivated land, which is to prioritize the restoration of high-quality cultivated land and take the reclamation of new cultivated land as a secondary option. Against this backdrop, the arable land within agricultural land that has been "non-grain" but still has the potential for restoration has become an important source for supplementing high-quality arable land. Scientifically evaluating the potential for restoring cultivated land consolidation and accurately identifying the timing for such restoration are of great significance for implementing the reform of the farmland occupation-reclamation balance system. Taking Zengcheng District of Guangzhou as an example, this study constructed the evaluation index system of the consolidation potential of recoverable cultivated land from the four dimensions of agricultural production suitability, agglomeration and connectivity, economic conditions and social will, calculated the value of each index through ArcGIS spatial analysis technology, and comprehensively evaluated the consolidation potential of recoverable cultivated land in Zengcheng district. In addition, the single class support vector machine is used to simulate the urgency of land consolidation, and the influence factors such as patch area and slope are selected. The restored land converted to cultivated land in the previous year is used as the training sample to simulate the urgency of consolidation of the current recoverable cultivated land resources. Finally, based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis coupling consolidation potential and urgency, the consolidation sequence of recoverable cultivated land is scientifically identified. The results show that: 1) the total area of recoverable cultivated land resources in Zengcheng district is 49.12 km², and the area of high potential plots is 9.87 km². The overall consolidation potential level of recoverable cultivated land is general, and the high potential plots only account for 20.09% of the total evaluation area; 2) The area of urgent consolidation in Zengcheng district is 22.27 km², accounting for 45.33% of the total area of recoverable arable land. The area of less urgent consolidation is 26.85 km², accounting for 54.67% of the total area. The more urgent plots are mainly distributed in the middle and southeast of Zengcheng district; 3) It is identified that the consolidation sequence of recoverable cultivated land resources in Zengcheng district is divided into short-term recoverable land, medium-term recoverable land and long-term recoverable land, with an area of 6.69 km², 8.22 km² and 34.21 km² respectively. The short-term and medium-term recoverable land only accounts for 30.37% of the total assessed area, and the long-term recoverable land only accounts for 69.63% of the total assessed area. This study quantitatively identifies the consolidation potential and sequence of the recoverable cultivated land plots, which can provide a reference for the promotion, implementation and adjustment of the cultivated land occupation-reclamation reform in Zengcheng district and other rapid urbanization areas.

Cultivated land resources are closely related to national food security, economic development and social stability. Low yield of grain farming has confined to a large number of cultivated lands in recent years, even permanent basic farmland planting cash crops, seedlings, and forest fruits. The “In-out Balance” policy has been released on the farmland to require that "while the cultivated land is converted into forest land, garden land and other agricultural land and agricultural facilities construction land, the same quantity and quality of cultivated land that can be used stably for a long time should be added". At present, most previous studies focus mainly on the implementation path of farmland access balance. Only a few research has been implemented on the performance evaluation. The purpose of this study is to explore the implementation performance and impact of farmland “In-out Balance” policy under scenario simulation. The policy mechanism was promoted to protect the cultivated land. Taking Guangzhou City as an example, the comparison was made to analyze the spatiotemporal pattern of land use under realistic scenarios (policy implementation scenarios) and counterfactual scenarios (inertial development scenarios). The cellular automata (CA) method was also utilized to construct the decision utility function of agricultural land internal conversion, the land use demand prediction model, and the comprehensive model of land use conversion potential. The implementation performance of the policy was forecasted in the future. The results were as follows: 1) The implementation of the policy had effectively reduced the loss of cultivated land in Guangzhou. The area of cultivated land was shifted to non-cultivated land in the policy implementation scenario from 2020 to 2030, which decreased by 20.40 km². 2) The policy posed a significant impact on the landscape pattern of cultivated and garden land. There was a higher aggregation degree of cultivated land, whereas, a greater fragmentation degree of garden land was found under the policy implementation scenario. 3) The proportion of internal land types in Guangzhou's agricultural land remained balanced in the policy implementation scenario from 2020 to 2030. More garden plots were restored into the arable land. There was the more uniform distribution of land types in different regions. In conclusion, better performance was achieved in the farmland “In-out Balance” policy in Guangzhou in the future. The loss of farmland was effectively reduced to maintain the proportion of the internal structure of farmland. The conversion of garden land to farmland was promoted to maintain the Dynamic equilibrium of the number of farmlands, particularly for the national food security. Four policy suggestions were proposed, including the expanding compensation path of cultivated land, strictly controlling the loss of cultivated land, the implementation of supporting measures, and "double balance" coordinated management. Only two scenarios were considered on the land use pattern in the urban development and cultivated land protection. More complex scenarios under the implementation of this policy can also be considered in future studies. The findings can provide the basis and suggestions for a more comprehensive and efficient implementation of the “In-out Balance” policy.