Multifunctional assessment and zoning of crop production system based on set pair analysis-A comparative study of 31 provincial regions in mainland China

•We present a multifunctional indicator system for assessing crop production system.•Set pair analysis is employed to measure the relativity of multifunctional levels.•We divide the 31 provinces into 9 groups.•Policy suggestions are proposed for multifunctional protection of crop production.

In this study, we present a multifunctional indicator system for the performance evaluation of crop production system by set pair analysis method. Five functions were summarized to represent the multifunctionality of crop production system, including production function, supply function, ecological function, security function and economic function. Setting a case study of 31 provincial regions in mainland China, this paper conducted a comparison of each function in different regions, divided into 9 groups by cluster analysis. The results show that: the levels of multifunction in most regions are under a low degree balance; the production function has a high coordination with the economic function and security function in China; the supply function is lowly correlated with the other functions, especially the economic function has negative correlation with the supply function to some extent; some relevant policies and suggestions are deduced for multifunctional improvement. It is concluded that the multifunctional indicators and the set pair analysis method can serve as an effective method for the assessment of crop production system.