Mountainous Areas: Alleviating the Shortage of Cultivated Land Caused by Changing Dietary Structure in China

Achieving food security and improving nutrition is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. With rapid socioeconomic development, the dietary structure of the Chinese population has changed significantly, leading to increased demand for cultivated land. At the same time, rapid urbanization has continuously reduced the amount of cultivated land in China, and there is an urgent necessity for the nation to alleviate the shortage of cultivated land to meet the population’s evolving dietary consumption needs. A review of the literature indicates that the use of mountainous areas to produce agricultural products for the population can effectively reduce the use of cultivated land on the plains and mitigate the shortage of cultivated land to meet dietary consumption needs. According to the different natural and socioeconomic conditions of mountainous areas, this study concludes that the adoption of mountain hillside, mountain understory, and mountainous limited cultivated land use patterns to develop agricultural production in mountainous areas is an effective approach to address the shortage of cultivated land caused by changes in the Chinese dietary structure.