According to the agricultural development in the red soil upland region in Southeast China, sub-systems such as population, resources, environment and social economy were analyzed separately. An assessing index system was used to assess the agricultural sustainability for the period from 1988 to 1996 and thus the results were compared with those obtained by other researchers with other methods. Thecoincidence proved the applicability of the index system and confirmed again that water and soil loss is the major obstacle faced in the sustainable development of the agriculture. Based on the evaluation results countec}measures were proposed.