The Virtual Area of Arable Land Based on Food Consumption in China

The virtual area is the base line value of the per capita arable area to ensure food security. As a reference, it is to understand the key reasons why the governments of the land management must reinforce the control to protect the cultivated land and the populaces must have the awareness of cultivated land security to participate the cultivated land conservation. To calculate the virtual area for per capita cultivated land area based on China´s food consumption structure, then the yield of food including grain, plant oil, sugar and vegetable, the virtual area per capita of cultivated land and the per capita actual arable area in China from 2011 to 2020 were calculated by the line regression analysis. At last, the ratio between the per capita virtual area of cultivated land and the per capita actual arable area was calculated too. This result showed that cultivated land pressure is less after 2011. The findings of this analysis suggested that cultivated land conservation is critical in China were consistent with the demand for improvement of Chinese consciousness, implement of land policy and development of economy. Because the cultivated land security is the base of food security.