Abstract: Exploring the evolution characteristics and improvement paths of ecological efficiency in cultivated land use holds significant practical importance for regional agricultural sustainable development, resource conservation, and ecological environment protection. Based on a relevant statistical data of Jiangxi Province from 2012 to 2023, this paper employed the Super-SBM model and the fsQCA analysis method to deeply explore the spatiotemporal differences in ecological efficiency of cultivated land utilization in Jiangxi Province and the configurational pathways for improvement. Results indicate that: 1）from 2012 to 2023, the overall ecological efficiency of cultivated land utilization in Jiangxi Province remained at a high-efficiency level, surpassing 1 in 2023 to reach a high-efficiency state; From 2012 to 2021, the highest efficiency was observed in the central region of Jiangxi, while the lowest was in the southern region. However, from 2022 to 2023, the southern region surpassed the northern and central regions, achieving the highest efficiency; 2）From a spatiotemporal distribution perspective: significant spatiotemporal differences in ecological efficiency of farmland utilization were observed across the 11 prefecture-level cities in Jiangxi Province during the study period. The number of high-efficiency regions increased from 2 in 2012 to 3 in 2016, then to 4 in 2020. By 2023, all prefecture-level cities except Jiujiang had reached a high-efficiency state, with only Pingxiang remaining in a high-efficiency state throughout the entire study period; 3）There are three pathways for improving the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in Jiangxi Province: multi-factor-driven, economy-policy-driven, and resource-policy dual-driven pathways; and 4）the configuration pathways for high-level ecological efficiency of farmland utilization exhibit distinct temporal evolution patterns, and there are substitution effects among core conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen agricultural scientific and technological research and development, improve agricultural infrastructure construction, increase fiscal support for agriculture, promote multi-factor coordinated development, and establish a long-term mechanism for enhancing ecological efficiency of cultivated land utilization.