The author, based on record of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography (Rosreestr), the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Resources of the Nizhniy Novgorod Region, the territorial body of the Federal State Statistic Service of the Nizhniy Novgorod Region, gives a comprehensive analysis of the state and the use of agricultural lands of the Nizhniy Novgorod region. The necessity of carrying out required measures for planning and organizing the rational use of agricultural lands and their protection, having regard to the specifics of the region, is substantiated. It was revealed that, despite the provision of the region with land resources, the following negative trends are observed in the change of the land fund of the studied subject of the Russian Federation: reduction of agricultural, including arable land, increase in the area of forest lands due to agricultural land and reserve lands, decrease in acreage, the presence of unused arable land and unclaimed land shares, deterioration of the quality condition soils, the annual increase in washed-away soils of agricultural lands. The main causes of negative processes are anthropogenic factors, such as: historically established remoteness of land from economic centers, short-term lease, low resource availability, non-compliance with crop rotations, and natural conditions. Due to the fact that the region is inhomogeneous in terms of soil, climatic, material, technical and labor resources, the author provides a comparative description of the state and use of agricultural land by zone. As a result of the research, the necessity of carrying out required land management works (hold a complete inventory, drafting inter-farm and farm land use planning of agricultural organizations, with the implementation of the proper crop rotations and the development of a set of anti-erosion measures), performing pedological, geobotanical and other surveys of agricultural lands, taking into account the specifics of the region, within the framework of the regional program for the use and protection of land, provided for in paragraph 1 of Article 10 of the Land Code of the Russian Federation, dated 25 October 2001, No. 136-FZ.