Beijing - The central government is encouraging provincial governments to do more to ensure there is enough arable land within their borders to feed the increasing numbers of people who live there.

Starting in September, the government will use a round of inspections to determine how well arable land is being conserved in China. It will look at the country's 31 provincial, municipal and autonomous region governments, the Ministry of Land and Resources said on its website on July 29.

The inspections are meant to gauge how well local authorities have done in the past five years at conserving the arable land in their jurisdictions, at guaranteeing a sufficient supply of farmland and at returning land to cultivation at times when they had allowed separate tracts of arable land to be put to different purposes, according to the ministry's announcement.