The objective of the study was to develop soil-protective farming system at landscapes preserving and restoring soil fertility of agricultural lands. Typification of lands was made and the types of agricultural landscapes were allocated: plain, hollow-gully, and gully-field. The analysis of the current structure of arable areas was made and resulted in the assessment of structure’s influence on the state of soil fertility. The main degradation processes reducing the fertility of south chernozems were studied. There were proposed the ways of creating the artificial agricultural landscapes as a critical resource-producing and environmental ecosystem based on forming the rational relationship between arable lands and agricultural technologies adapted to the given locality, as well as cultivated species of plants at the level of specific types. The research established that the greatest influence on the state of agricultural landscapes had the percentage of arable lands which was primarily associated with the terrain features, shapes and slopes of the soil surface. The greatest percentage of arable lands 87.7 % is observed at the plain type with the slopes up to 1º. At the gully-field type with slopes more than 5º the percentage of arable lands decreases to 44.9 %. Increasing the area of arable lands requires enlarging the area of forest plantations. It is confirmed that the proposed system of activities, comprising the creation of forest belt and grassing, significantly decreased soil erosion by melt water runoff. At the site without forest belt soil erosion at the slope of 1.8º and distance of 180 m from the watershed was 3.1 t/ha, and at the slope of 4.0º and distance of 180 m from the watershed increased up to 10.8 t/ha.
