The Ministry of Land and Resources is planning to strengthen its supervision of arable land use later this year to protect China's shrinking inventory of farm land and guarantee it can feed its massive population.

"In order to safeguard the bottom line of 120 million hectares of arable land, we must develop land effectively," Dong Zuoji, director of the ministry's planning department, told China Daily yesterday.

The country is already close to its "bottom line" of arable land, with 121.7 million hectares available at the end of last year, according to the latest figures from the ministry.