ABSTRACT Against rapid urbanization in China, food security challenges including shrinking arable land and weak agri‐food supply chain resilience have become increasingly prominent, which elevates the strategic value of peri‐urban agriculture in localizing supply chains and safeguarding urban food security. Taking Guangdong Province, China, as a study area, this study uses municipal‐level statistical data and multidimensional quantitative analysis to establish a comprehensive food security assessment framework integrated with sustainable development orientation via the incorporation of future scenario prediction and resource sustainability assessment, aiming to ensure long‐term, stable and resource‐efficient food security, and systematically examines the contribution of agricultural production in highly urbanized municipalities to food security. The results show that agricultural production in highly and non‐highly urbanized regions presents significant and persistent spatial differentiation: the grain, vegetable and melon yields in highly urbanized municipalities are significantly lower, with the grain self‐sufficiency rate nearly zero and basic self‐sufficiency of vegetables and melons but limited surplus. The non‐grain proportion of cropland is more prominent in highly urbanized municipalities. Despite steady gains in agricultural water use efficiency across both region types, combined disparities in cropland structure, water utilization and well‐facilitated farmland (WFF) construction sustain a long‐term structural gap in grain self‐sufficiency. The proposed suggestions including differentiated peri‐urban agriculture development strategies and a benefit compensation mechanism for grain production and consumption areas can provide empirical and policy references for highly urbanized municipalities in China to implement the “Rice Bag” and “Vegetable Basket” policies and offer Guangdong's experience for improving the regional food security guarantee system amid rapid urbanization.
Yang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.