Abstract: To study the sustainable development state of arable land resource in Linxia prefecture, the authors used the model of ecological footprint to dynamically analyze the ecological footprint of arable land in Linxia prefecture during 2002-2015. The results showed that per capita ecological footprint of arable land in Linxia prefecture increased from 0.2858 hm2 to 0.4753 hm2, which increased by 66.31% during 2002- 2015. Ecological capacity of per capita decreased from 0.2775 hm2 to 0.2431 hm2, which decreased by 12.40% during 2002-2015. Arable land in Linxia prefecture did not have ecological surplus, ecological deficit of per capita grew from 0.0083 hm2 to 0.2322 hm2, which increased by 26.98 times. Throughout the study time scale, the ecological deficit showed a rapid growth trend. The results showed that agricultural production of arable land resources in Linxia prefecture was beyond the scope of ecological capacity, coupled with the growth of population, the relation between people and arable land became more and more tense, resulting in growing instability of arable land ecosystem, and the use of arable land resources was in an unsustainable state. Finally, the authors put forward some recommendations accordingly.