Connotation and trends of agricultural spatial planning in the ecological civilization era

Abstract: Agricultural space is one of the most important parts of the territorial space, particularly for agriculture production and rural living. Agricultural spatial planning is an overall arrangement about the protection, utilization, renovation, and restoration of agricultural space during a specific period. Specifically, the territorial spatial planning aims to optimize the agricultural spatial structure for the implementation of rural development strategy. It is also necessary to improve the national food security, agricultural efficiency, and competitiveness in the construction of ecological civilization. Three categories are often divided into the plans of agricultural space: 1) protection of cultivated land, 2) utilization of regional division, 3) rural territory consolidation, such as the readjustment of farmland, and rural construct land, as well as ecological restoration. These plans have greatly contributed to the management of land space at different stages of rural development. However, most plans focused only on one activity or one element of agricultural space, leading to low efficiency of space protection, and the disorder of space utilization, even the destruction of the ecological environment system. Six development trends can also be found in the utilization of agricultural space in the era of ecological civilization, multi functions of agriculture, high-quality of consumption demand, green development mode, digitization of development means, urban-rural integration, and industrial integration of development path. In this study, seven strategies were also proposed. 1) The structure of the agricultural spatial system was optimized using the concept of life community. 2) A trade-off was coordinated between the baselines of security and social-economic development, thereby promoting the harmonious coexistence between man and nature. 3) Three systems were also necessary to be built, in response to the demands for high-quality products, life, and ecological environment. First, the classified protection was composed of various agricultural land for different products, such as the permanent basic farmland for food security, grain, and key agro-product production protection areas for stable supply, as well as the predominant areas of characteristic agricultural products for competitive advantage. Second, the efficient utilization system consisted of regional distribution, the whole industrial chain, and agricultural parks layout. Third, the consolidation and restoration system also included quantity supplement, quality improvement of farmland, and rural ecological restoration. 4) Regional distribution of agriculture was optimized, according to main functions. 5) The industrial chains were relocated suitable for the green development. 6) Agriculture parks were necessary to integrate the urban-rural and industrial communities. 7) The efficiency of planning and management was also improved using digital technology. Therefore, this finding can provide a promising insightful idea for the territorial spatial planning.