Synergistic Management of Abandoned Cropland Mitigates Trade‐Offs Between Food Security and Climate Mitigation in Hilly and Mountainous Areas

Abstract

Abandoned cropland is a crucial strategic reserve to reconcile food security (SDG 2) and climate mitigation (SDG 13). However, maximizing these co‐benefits in ecologically fragile hilly regions is constrained by intense spatial competition between food and carbon. In this study, we proposed a spatial decision‐making framework that integrates suitability assessment and Pareto optimization to quantify trade‐offs and identify synergistic pathways in a typical hilly province of Southwest China. The results showed that although the remaining abandoned cropland had substantial potential for either food (4.0 × 10 ¹¹  kcal yr ⁻¹ ) or carbon (1.38 × 10 ⁶  t CO ₂  yr ⁻¹ ), the dual‐suitability overlap rate reached 69.1%, leading to high opportunity costs under single‐objective management. Crucially, scenario simulations and Pareto analysis identified Pareto‐efficient compromise solutions for balancing regional benefits. When spatial prioritization was combined with intensified management, food and carbon potentials could be increased by 125.0% and 51.6%, respectively, without expanding beyond abandoned cropland. These findings highlight that governing abandoned cropland in complex terrain requires spatially differentiated zoning that distinguishes food‐dominant, carbon‐dominant, and synergistic management zones to achieve regional synergistic gains.