chapter 2 livestock husbandry development and agro ... livestock husbandry development and...

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Synopsis This is an overview of the grazing systems in common use in NW China. People are recognized as a key factor in the management of rangelands and the participation of herders and other land users is especially important in arresting and reversing rangeland degradation. Current strategies to achieve more sustainable rangeland use are examined.

Key Points

1. Two major livestock production systems are in use in NW China. The Pure grazing enterprise that relies on seasonal migration from winter pastures at low elevations to summer grazing on alpine and mountain meadows and the Agro-pastoral enterprises that rely on integration (to a greater or lesser extent) of the rangelands and the croplands.

2. Government policy is to develop a system of livestock production from range-lands that incorporates modern scientific animal husbandry and an intensifica-tion of production methods. Policy is difficult to implement and progress toward better integration of arable and non arable land which is the key to increasing forage and fodder production is slow.

3. Mixed systems, at the interface between croplands and rangelands, are under con-stant pressure to increase the area devoted to fodder and grain to meet the burgeon-ing demand for pen feeding of livestock and in response to population pressures and national policies that subsidize cereal production and self-sufficiency.

4. Grazing systems are characterized by a relatively low productivity, and most land that is suitable for grazing is already under use. Stocking rates of rangelands are probably at the maximum levels (or higher) allowed by current technologies.

Victor Squires (*) University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

Hua Limin Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, China

Chapter 2Livestock Husbandry Development and Agro-Pastoral Integration in Gansu and Xinjiang

Victor Squires and Hua Limin

V. Squires et al. (eds.), Towards Sustainable Use of Rangelands in North-West China, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-9622-7_2, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

20 Victor Squires and Hua Limin

Therefore, it is not realistic to expect large increases of production from these systems.

5. There is a clear need to tackle the causes of the land degradation problem and not just deal with the consequences. Most effort in the past have been aimed in “solving” minor problems such as “how to get more forage from each hectare” rather than deal with the underlying causes of lower productivity such as inse-cure land tenure, unclear boundaries for the assigned grazing user rights, lack of clear policy on how to balance livestock numbers and feed supplies.

Keywords Ecosystem services • agro-pastoral integration • feed balance • stocking rates • grazing user rights • land tenure • ecological versus conventional approach • artificial pastures • pen feeding • markets • management interventions • carbon sinks • applied research • scaling-up

1 The Setting for the Pastoral Rangelands in Northwest China

The rangeland in western China occupy about 331 million square hectometers, accounting for 49.04% of the total land area, and account for 84.1% of China’s in total rangeland (Chapter 1, Squires and Hua 2010). Not all rangelands are used for pastoralism but by far the biggest proportion of Gansu and Xinjiang are used for range/livestock production. Between them these areas represent 19.1% of China’s rangelands. Rangelands in northwest China including those in Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang are mountainous area with elevations up to 4,000 m whilst others are lowlands with a semi-desert climate. The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau rangeland in the west is the source of a few major rivers in China Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong and Bramaphutra). And the degraded rangeland in Xinjiang, Gansu and parts of neigh-bouring Inner Mongolia are also a major source for dust and sandstorm (DSS). The ecological value of the grazed rangelands (pastoral lands) is high (Squires et al. 2009) and ranks highly in the continental ecosystem, especially as it provides important ecological services (Chapter 1, Squires and Hua 2010a).

Herding is a major subsistence activity in high risk environments such as NW China. Pure herding may be defined as a mode of existence based on the exploita-tion of successive generations of domestic animals but variations on this production system do occur (see below). The accumulation of animals and herd mobility are the main elements of the pastoral pursuit in order to deal with the environmental instability. For the accumulation of livestock the herd managers, generally a herder household, have to protect the livestock from all kinds of hazards, such as, animal diseases and lack of forage and water. The latter two may even wipe out (large parts of) the herds in a short span of time. The accumulation of animals is therefore not an irrational strategy geared towards prestige, but an insurance strategy. The reason for accumulating livestock lies not in the desire to increase yield beyond a fixed domestic target, but in the need to provide the household with some security against environmental fluctuations. Such a strategy may be labelled ‘opportunistic’ rather than profit oriented. This strategy seems to be oriented towards the reduction of

212 Livestock Husbandry Development and Agro-Pastoral Integration in Gansu

risks. Yet, the maintenance of large flocks and herds introduces a new element of instability into the pastoral enterprise.

Nowadays, only a few herder households exclusively rely on livestock keeping for their subsistence, but in the better rainfall zones some agro-pastoral households cultivate and keep animals at the same time. In the same ecological zones most cultivating neighbours keep significant numbers of animals, and sometimes even move with these animals. Over the past century the importance of the combination of pastoral and agricultural production within one organizational unit has grown under the impact of market integration and the transformed policy environment. Most areas of rangeland in north-west China, especially Gansu and Xinjiang, are home to semi-nomadic people from ethnic minorities who depend on herding for their living. Despite the development of commercial pastoralism, most herders continue to use rangeland resources in ways that resemble their traditional lifestyles and economies (Hu and Zhang 2003).

A brief description of the two major livestock/rangeland systems that apply in most counties is given below.

1.1 Pure Grazing Systems

The pure grazing enterprise relies on seasonal migration from winter pastures at low elevations to summer grazing on alpine and mountain meadows.

A transhumance system still operates within many rangeland areas that are clas-sified by the time when they are grazed. Summer pastures which are located at the highest altitude with a short growing season are grazed in common with other flocks from July to August. Autumn/spring pastures are grazed in June, then again in September and October when livestock move from the lowest altitude (grazed from November to May).

Typically there are four pastures (sometimes only three) that are used in response to seasonal growth rhythms and altitudinal differences. Variations to this system exist e.g. Sunan County in Gansu has a pure herding system but the livestock remain on the mountain for the whole of the year and move up and down according to the growing season of the major rangeland types. In Fuyun County, Xinjiang there is long distance seasonal migration (over 400 km each way) and the herds/flocks remain in one place for relatively short periods of time en route. The period on the summer pastures is about 8–9 weeks (Fig. 1).

1.2 Agro-Pastoral Areas

These enterprises rely on integration (to a greater or lesser extent) of the rangelands and the croplands. Typical pastoral counties fall into several categories depending on the extent of their reliance on rangelands/rangelands. They range from almost total reliance to about 40/60 as this example from Xinjiang shows (Fig. 2).


A greater understanding of the linkages between animal husbandry, rangelands and the realities of the market economy has now emerged (Chapter 9, Zhang et al., 2010). The role of the urban centres and of the irrigated croplands as suppliers of fodder, services such as animal health, and as a market for livestock (for fattening or direct slaughter) and livestock products (wool, cashmere, skins and hides etc.) is now more clear (Li et al. 2008; Hou et al. 2008).

Government policy is to develop a system of livestock production from range-lands that incorporates modern scientific animal husbandry and an intensification of production methods. This policy is difficult to implement and progress toward better integration of arable and non arable land which is the key to increasing forage and fodder production is slow. There are constraints, some of which relate to:

Baicheng 80/20

Bole 75/25

Qitai40/60

Reliance on R

angeland

Reliance on fodder crops, sown pastures

Hejing 90/10,Fuyun 95/5

Aletai 85/15

Hami 65/35Yumin 65/35Takesi 65/35Xinyuan65/35

Fig. 2 The proportion of the annual forage supplied by the rangeland varies across the various sites but most are heavily dependent on the rangelands. In pure grazing areas it is near 90% but in the agro-pastoral counties more than 50% of total forage/fodder comes from sown pastures or fodder crops

Fig. 1 An example of a grazing situation involving several pastures and specific dates of entry and exit that are set by the local village committee


The lack of suitable land to convert from rangeland to forage-producing areas • such as cropland for silage maize or oat production or for alfalfa for hayThe present system of transhumance that requires livestock to move on a sea-• sonal basis from grazing areas in the lowlands to the uplandsThe mind-set of herders that has developed over centuries of use of these remote • rangelands that relied on mobility and freedom of movement to “follow the rain and the forage”The lack of technical know-how on the part of the herders about how to grow • fodder and forage crops and how to practice fodder conservation like hay mak-ing and silage productionThe lack of suitable land where supplementary irrigation is available• The lack of capital with which to buy seed, fertilizer and agricultural equipment • to plow, reap, harvest and process fodder and forage crops. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of rural credit

This important aspect is dealt with in more detail in Chapter 3 (Squires et al. 2010a) and Chapter 9 (Zhang et al. 2010) where there is discussion of current and future challenges for livestock systems.

2 The Rangelands of Northwest China: A Resource on the Edge

Western rangeland plays a very important role in the local economy. Reference has already been made to its value as a source for several major rivers (including some transboundary ones in Xinjiang) and numerous inland rivers in both Gansu and Xinjiang that provide a food production base from China’s irrigation areas.1 However both the human interferences and natural factors have driven the rangeland ecosys-tem downwards. The rangeland degradation is caused by a multiple factors. It is commonly recognized that the unbalanced feed and stock due to overgrazing is an important cause on top of natural factors such as drought (Li et al. 2008).

Most of the problems associated with the management of rangelands and espe-cially those dealing with rangeland degradation are people problems (Squires 2009). It is not really possible to manage natural resources without engaging the land users themselves in the process. Most cases of serious land degradation arise from mis-use of land by people who are under great pressure from a harsh environment and, all too often. policy decisions that adversely affect them. Relief of the pressure by such policy instruments as improved legislation, fairer prices for inputs and outputs, income re-distribution and subsidies can make a huge difference to how people behave. The coping strategies of subsistence herders often involve destructive prac-tices and the notion of sustainability is far from their minds as they eke out an

1 Called artificial oases that were developed by damming inland rivers and converting riparian areas and adjacent rangeland into cropland.


existence at the margin of society. There is still a belief that animal husbandry is the key component and raising herder incomes is a priority. The management of the rangeland is a secondary concern. The efforts are in “solving” minor problems such as “how to get more forage from each hectare” rather than deal with the underlying causes such as insecure land tenure, unclear boundaries for the assigned grazing user rights (Chapter 12, Wang et al. 2010) and poorly developed markets for live-stock and livestock products such as meat, wool and cashmere.

Grazing systems are characterized by a relatively low productivity, and most land that is suitable for grazing is already under use. Grazing production has a very slow response to changes in demand, because of the long time required for repro-ductive animals to grow and mature, and thus for stock numbers to build up. In fact, partly because in these systems animals are both the capital base and the source of cash flow the short-term response to increases in price is a reduction of marketed production, as increases in stock are retained to increase production capacity. In any case, stocking rates of rangelands are probably at the maximum levels (or higher) allowed by current technologies. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect large increases of production from these systems.

Mixed systems, at the interface between croplands and rangelands, are under constant pressure to increase the area devoted to fodder and grain to meet the burgeoning demand for pen feeding of livestock and in response to population pressures and national policies that subsidize cereal production and self-sufficiency (Waldron et al. 2007; Wang et al. 2004). These policies are a major driving force behind the conversion of good and marginal lands from rangelands and pastures to cereal cropping (Hou et al. 2008; Zhang et al. 2009).

3 Stocking Rates, Carrying Capacity and Total Grazing Pressure

The rangeland monitoring in 2006 shows that average rate of overstocking on range-lands across China is about 34%, whereas the overstocking rate in Gansu is about 40% and in Xinjiang it is up to 70% in some areas (Han et al. 2008; Jin and Zhou 2009). The causes of overgrazing have received closer attention in recent years from government officials and scholars. A series of comments and suggestions has also come out from these studies (Yang and Hou 2005). The overstocking problem is seri-ous with the overstocking rate at least 40% on average but in some areas it is even higher (Table 1) and is accelerating in many areas since 1999 (Squires et al. 2009).

There is a lack of clear policy on how to balance livestock numbers and feed supplies. The Chinese government in 2002 issued < Various guidelines to strengthen the protection and utilization of rangeland>, in which the feed balance system was promoted as an important approach. In 2003, there was a revised < Grassland

2 Called Grassland Law in China because rangelands is not a term commonly used in China.


Law > to legislate the feed balance system and allow the determination of stocking rate on the basis of pasture condition and forage availability. As a follow- up, the governments at various levels have gradually enforced local regulations on imple-mentation of the revised < Grassland Law2>. One important approach that has been stressed repeatedly is the “feed balance management system”.

There have been great efforts since 1980s in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Gansu, where the major herding areas are located, on how to implement the feed balance system. Two aspects were considered: (i) the policy point of view; and (ii) the technical point of view. Despite this, the overgrazing issue has not been addressed thoroughly. The answer to this is partly explained by the weak rangeland supervision regime, and by the inaccurate calculation of feed balance (Chapter 10, Wu et al. 2010). The policy maker’s perspective on how to perfect the feed balance system has informed the feed balance program but it is clear that input from plant ecologists and livestock nutritionists would help.

Theoretically, the objective of feed balance system could be reached through the reduction of flocks and raising the supply of pastures given the overgrazing status on China’s rangeland. However, rangeland in western China has its unique features, special types of rangeland (most them are high-cold meadow and desert steppe). In addition to that, the artificial pastureland is confined to small areas. Hence the possibility to increase the pasture supply is limited. It leads to the point that the reduction of herd size becomes the focus (Chapter 14, Michalk et al. 2010). The questions are:

How to supervise the reduction of stocking pressure?• Who will supervise the process – the government or will the herders and farmers • supervise the process by themselves?How to transfer the excessive stock from the rangeland?• How to secure the herders’ subsistence?•

The answers to these questions are the key to the success of the feed balance system. It is usual to start with an economic analysis of sample household families (Chapter 14, Hua and Michalk 2010) and end with the suggestions on how to improve the current feed balance system. There is need for stakeholders to discuss the impact on their livelihood status given that the feed balance calculation usually means a drastic reduction in the stocking rate.

Table 1 Percentage of rangelands in NW China that was estimated to be overgrazed in 1990 and 1999. Further degradation has occurred in many areas since 1999

Province

1990 1999

Overgrazed Degraded Overgrazed Degraded

Tibet No data 14 30 15Inner Mongolia No data 40 32 60Xinjiang No data 0 60–70 65Qinghai No data 17 31 39Sichuan No data 24 13 28Gansu No data 40 35 50


Efforts to reduce livestock pressure will be ineffective if the recommended stocking rate generates insufficient income to meet the absolute minimum that a household needs (Chapter 11, Hua and Michalk 2010). Gansu was ranked 30th out of 31 Provinces in 2004 in terms of the rural income per capita and levels were far lower than the average rural income for China as a whole (Brown et al. 2008, p. 233). The herders’ income sources in Gansu are undiversified and their net income is low. In some cases, the expenditure is even bigger than income (Chapter 11, Hua and Michalk 2010). Livestock production is the dominant income source for herders. If the herders’ subsistence cannot be secured, the reduction of herd/flock size would impose negative impact on herders. This may necessitate action on the part of the government to provide compensation. This could be linked to enhanced livestock production that rises from fewer, more productive animals (Chapter 14, Michalk et al. 2010).This link between the rangeland monitoring, the calculation of feed balance and the extension of the principles of science and technology to the countryside is not really appreciated by the local bureaus. The effectiveness of the efforts to achieve feed balance depends on a consolidation of these ideas into a unified program of training, extension, and analysis. The development of strategic plans for each Village3 that are based on community participation in the design and management of more sustainable rangeland uses has been trialled. It might be difficult in most demonstration villages to get complete agreement by the whole village but a household-based approach is certainly achievable and there are good examples of cooperating households agreeing to and testing out alternative ways of managing their land (Chapter 1, Squires and Hua 2010).

Many past interventions that relied on technical “solutions” such as those in many multilateral and bilateral projects in Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and elsewhere in northwest China have failed to bring about long term change. The introduction of new approaches such as Integrated Ecosystem Management (IEM), whose guiding principle is to allow solutions to evolve rather than be imposed from outside, may have a better chance of success (Jiang 2006) There is a clear need to bridge the gap between production and income objectives of the land users on the one hand, and the long-term objective of preserving natural resources on the other. The process will be long and costly but to do nothing is not an option.

Examples of agro-pastoral integration such as in Anding District of Dingxi County in Gansu show that the approach is not just something theoretical but that it can allow incomes to rise without over-exploiting rangeland resources (Zhang et al. 2010). Re-structuring of crop and livestock enterprises has enabled the village households to rest rangelands, arrest soil erosion and yet still get higher net incomes. Other innovative approaches are a feature of the implementation in Sunan and Yongchan counties in Gansu and in Xinyuan and Yumin counties in Xinjiang.

There are three major elements (Fig. 3) in most Counties (people, rangeland and livestock). In some areas wildlife (plants as well as animals) plays an important role.

3 In China, local government is based on a hierarchy of Province, Prefecture, Township and Village. A Village can cover a very large area of rangeland and involve 150–300 households.


There are intersecting sets of activities that relate to each of these elements (Fig. 4). No progress can be made in developing sustainable rangeland management and meeting the other development objectives without an understanding of how the rangeland/livestock/people system works (see Fig. 3). The choice of interventions from an extensive menu of possibilities depends on matching the proposed inter-vention to the perceived need.

Fig. 3 Rangeland systems involve interactions between major subsystems. Some of the interac-tions are strongly negative. Good management seeks to minimize negative impacts

Livestock

Rangeland

+

+

+

+

− −

−

−

Wildlife

Arrows with “+“ indicate the same direction of change

Arrows with “−“ indicate the opposite direction

Human population

Fig. 4 Elements of the more intensive production system based on pen feeding in winter. Note the scope of the management interventions and the need to put together packages of measures that are mutually reinforcing

Design, build

Biogas Animal health Artificialpastures or

fodder

Species

Sowing rate,sowing time

Grass choppingmachines, use, care,

safety

Silage pits.Why?How?

Design

Fodderconservation

Haymaking

Waste disposal

Grasslandmanagement

defer, rotationalgrazing, re-seed

Ration formulation,which stock to feed

and how much?

Warmpen

design,build

Feedbalance


Box 1 An example from Xin Yuan County, Xinjiang of innovative approaches to implementation

Xin Yuan county in Xinjiang is one of the sites for the World Bank/GEF proj-ect. The rainfall here is about 450 mm per year. Traditionally, whole year-round grazing is the norm and this involves the designation of different seasonal pastures and animal movement, usually altitudinal migration up and down the mountain. Livestock over-wintered in the open on designated winter pasture in the lowlands. Of recent years the rapid expansion of livestock numbers has led to a lack of feed intake and generally poor livestock nutrition. This is mainly due to the lack of forage from the overgrazed rangelands, exacerbated by low feed quality in winter and spring. Overloading of summer pastures due to fail-ure of the grazing user rights system to regulate stock numbers is a special and serious problem. Even though user rights were assigned the demarcation of boundaries of individual grazing user rights are unclear. As a result, the degraded grassland area is now more than 5 million mu, about 67% of the total rangeland area. In addition, poisonous plants and inedible grass are taking over the rangelands gradually and forage production capacity has decreased dra-matically. In order to solve the problem of land degradation in the seasonal pasture, an innovative approach was trialled. The farmers changed the whole year-round grazing to two seasonal grazing and prolonged the time of pen feed-ing to 180 days. The system involved dividing the year into two parts with graz-ing within fenced areas in the spring and autumn pastures and on communal range in summer and pen feeding in winter. Keeping the animals in the pens a little longer, after green-up, allows deferment of grazing in spring (leading to better rangeland health and improved livestock nutrition). In the two-season system more fodder is required and crop residues and other purpose-planted fodder crops and forage crops are grown. The ‘intervention package’ being imple-mented in Xin Yuan required investment for fencing, the warm pens, fodder conservation (hay, silage) and the purchase of crop residues and some grain or concentrates. Notwithstanding these outlays farmers reported that within several years there were higher incomes from fewer livestock. The approach mitigated the grazing pressure on natural pastures because the farmers feed their livestock with hay, crop residues, crop straw, etc., so as to reduce the dependence on overgrazed winter pastures. Mortality rates of pregnant females are down and the birth weights of offspring born in early spring have increased thus reducing neo-natal mortality. Body weight losses which often accounted for more than 30% in the period November to May has been reduced so that the energy stores of live-stock after they leave the pen feeding situation are at a higher level, allowing the animals to make rapid compensatory gains and for lactating females to conceive again sooner as their bodyweight quickly passes the threshold for conception. All of these benefits are additive and farmers/herders can move toward a more sustainable use of the rangelands while at the same time improve their lives and livelihoods. Compiled from field notes in World Bank/GEF project on Pastoral Development in Gansu and Xinjiang.


Each activity-set has the potential to reduce the pressure on the rangelands. In other words, to manage the vast areas of rangeland in a way that achieves the objective of conserving biodiversity and capturing carbon while at the same time contributing to livelihoods of millions of people. Carbon gain and storage will be enhanced when rangeland are not abused (Chapter 7, Long et al. 2010). At present the experi-mental evidence from sites across China is that most degraded rangelands are net emitters of CO

2 (Fang et al. 2007). To turn this around so that these rangelands

become a C sink (or even C neutral) would be a big step (Squires 1998).In recent years there is a better understanding among both land users (herders

and farmers) and the county and provincial level technical staff of the keys to sus-tainability and the realities of the market economy.

There is recognition now too of the fact that there are only a few management options available to the land users (Chapter 3, Squires et al. 2010). Those that do exist fall into two categories:

Reduce total grazing pressure• Increase feed supply and/or utilization efficiency•

4 Applied Research Strategy for Northwest China

Research by specialist institutes and universities needs to focus on the problems. The strategy should emphasize farmer/herder participation in demonstrations implemented through a co-learning, collaborative framework. The focus of the research and extension program includes: rangeland rehabilitation and improve-ment, artificial rangeland development, biodiversity conservation and enhanced carbon sequestration (Fig. 5)

There are three broad strategies in this applied research program:

1. Designing optimal grazing models for pastoral areas in Xinjiang and Gansu

Systems relevant to village-based herding that have a higher component of –artificial rangeland and supplementary feeds from crop residues and con-served fodder such as haySystems relevant to transhumant herding is practiced and where altitudinal –migration occurs between summer pastures in the uplands and winter grazing in the lowlands

Optimizing resource utilization under both grazing systems requires derivation of a feed balance that seeks to identify the contribution to the annual food intake that comes from various sources e.g. rangeland, artificial pastures (usually irri-gated), crop residues, feed supplements such as cotton seed meal, grain etc. Specific topics for investigation and demonstration involve the management of total grazing pressure in matters such as season of use, stocking density and “return time” (the interval between grazing of individual forage plants). Opportunities for agro-pastoral integration are being explored in applied research studies and


demonstrated in the pilot areas (Chapter 4, Kirychuk and Fritz 2010; Chapter 9, Wu et al. 2010). 2. Assessing the response of grazing lands to total grazing pressure (including

trampling and harvest by rodents, grasshoppers and wildlife)

Dynamic monitoring of rangeland productivity, soil protection function –Biodiversity and carbon sequestration potential under different grazing regimes –Development of a sound Baseline rangeland resource inventory using remote –sensing, GIS and other relevant technologiesDemarcate and map important rangeland areas in Xinjiang and Gansu –

3. Investigating the genetic potential of important local livestock breeds

Work is focused on –

The white yak in Gansu• Tan sheep in Gansu• Assessment of genetic distance among local sheep breeds in Xinjiang•

4. Evaluating the new systems based on warm pens, sown pastures, fodder crops (silage/hay)

Fig. 5 Applied research projects and their objectives in Gansu


Two-pasture systems versus four-pasture systems• Role of pen feeding in the seasonal feed balance equation•

5 Ecological Versus the Conventional Approach

The role of the ecological approach is to provide the type of understanding necessary for ecologically sustainable land management. The ecological approach maximizes the use of natural resources without causing damage to an ecosystem. The ecological approach defines ecological sustainability in quantitative, measur-able terms. There are big differences between the conventional (most exploitative) approach and the ecosystem approach (Table 2).

There has been a failure throughout China to replicate the results of successful projects or applied research where worthwhile outcomes/results were demon-strated. Even where some replication has been attempted it has been limited. The next step after successful replication in a number of sites would be to scale up. Scaling up means taking successful programs, policies or projects and expanding, adopting and sustaining them in different places and across time, which requires learning about what works and what doesn’t. Scaling up the fight against rangeland

Table 2 Distinguishing features of conventional versus integrated ecosystem approaches

Attribute Conventional approach Integrated ecosystem approach

Perspective Natural systems seen as input suppliers Land fertility, water etc. for current or future commodity production

Natural and managed ecosystems viewed as part of one interdependent whole, providing a wide range of goods and services

Products A few commodities or products A wide array of both managed and natural goods and services

Strategy Maximize yield, production, and net present value by intensifying the use of land, labour and capital

Optimize total ecosystem goods and services output over time

Methodology Reductionist: high resolution measurement of a small number of factors (“know more and more about less and less”)

System-oriented, including both quantitative and qualitative assessments with close attention to interactions, flows, trade-offs

Approach to diversity

Reduce diversity for more predictable results, more targeted interventions, and greater economies of scale

Take advantage of diversity (biodiversity, social and cultural) to exploit niche potential, meet a wider range of needs, reduce total system risks and preserve future options

Scales of work Field level, ownership boundaries secured

Ecosystem level, community and landscape, societal plus biophysical

Role of science Applied Science focused on biophysical resources, geared towards specific technology outputs

Combine biophysical with social and policy analysis to create working models for testing and for local adaptation


degradation or biodiversity loss can be defined as adapting and expanding positive development experiences in space and time. There are examples e.g. Anding, in Gansu where the county government has implemented a funding scheme to encour-age the building of warm pens and silage pits. Subsidies are paid to the participating farmers in the way of providing construction materials and blueprints (plans) and technical advice and assistance.

Other important indicators of success of research or demonstration relates to the reported substantial rise in income by demonstration households (HH). Higher net farm income to HH is seen by many as the end-point but the more important question is what happens to the extra HH income. What is pertinent is the plans that HH make to use this additional income. These plans might fall into one of three categories (a) invest in their enterprise e.g. buy more livestock or a motor bike, (b) improve living standards, e.g. new house, TV, etc. or (c) invest in their children’s education. This last mentioned is an important tangible outcome of demonstration projects although it is not so easily quantified. Where HH are able to generate more income through the recommended interventions there is a clearly demonstrable benefit in that this emphasis on children’s education is contributing to the National program of re-structuring agriculture and re-location of rural people away from direct dependence on the land. This empowerment of the people is a way forward for rural NW China and contributes to the rural readjustment policy of the government of China.

From the point of view of uptake by others (and thus the impact of the demon-stration projects) the principal barrier is lack of rural credit. The existing short term (1 year) loans do not allow time for infrastructure improvements or anything much except purchase of more livestock. In this regard they are actually counterproduc-tive and exacerbate the problem of overstocking.

There is a clear need to tackle the causes of the land degradation problem and not just deal with the consequences. Most effort in the past have been aimed in “solving” minor problems such as “how to get more forage from each hectare” rather than deal with the underlying causes of lower productivity such as insecure land tenure, unclear boundaries for the assigned grazing user rights, lack of clear policy on how to balance livestock numbers and feed supplies. There has been progress though over recent years in gaining a better understanding, among both land users (herders and farmers) and the county and provincial level technical staff, of the keys to sustainability and the realities of the market economy. These two issues requires special knowledge and skills, requires delicate work by the line agencies. It is not easy to solve at the moment.

The rapid development in pen-fed enterprises at farming areas is intended to lay a new path to address the overstocking problem in rangelands. But the pastoral areas in China have unfavourable conditions to develop stall fed enterprises, such as poor infrastructure, lack of fodder supplies from crops or from artificial pastures, lack of storage facilities for conserved fodder etc. It has been proposed by some experts to set closer linkages between the farming and herding areas (Hou et al. 2008). The linkages could be explained as a production chain integrating the breeding in the herding area and fattening in the lowland farming area to reduce the stocking


rate on rangelands. However, such a new production model may have limited appli-cation if there was irrational distribution of benefits between stakeholders. One of the feasible options to reduce the number of livestock on rangeland is to drive the excessive animals out of the rangeland (Chapter 14, Michalk et al. 2010). However the herding areas are far behind the farming area in terms of communication and availability of technical and market information. There is still room for improve-ment in terms of management and technologies to improve the economic returns from the pen-fed enterprises and to improve the marketing systems in herding areas (Chapter 9, Zhang et al. 2010; Chapter 10, Wu et al. 2010; Chapter 11, Hua and Michalk 2010) (Fig. 6).

Clearly, the overstocking problem cannot be solved at one go, it should be addressed using a systematic approach. The government and the technical agen-cies should carry out basic work over a wide range of sites to facilitate the imple-mentation of policy for “determination of stocking rate based on pastures”. The government and the technical agencies should set up complete teams and technical system to do rangeland monitoring and provide herders with accurate and effective feed balance information (Chapter 4, Kirychuk and Fritz 2010; Chapter 5, Squires et al. 2010).

6 The Economics of Various Production Systems

Several important considerations are relevant to the profitability of raising livestock in NW China. A better understanding of these factors will help land administrators, extension personnel and the policy-makers.

The cost structure of livestock production is composed of pastoral private costs (PPC), which livestock owners bear for rearing their herds, and pastoral private saved costs (PPSC), which livestock owners are not paying because they have access to,

Fig. 6 Warm pens for over-wintering livestock (especially pregnant females) are a major energy-saver and can also allow selective feeding of supplements to keep pace with nutritional demands of pregnancy


relatively, free grazing resources. Under these conditions, the objective of pastoral-ists is to minimize the size of the PPC while increasing the size of the PPSC by extensively relying on common pastures and free grazing access-options. The PPSC is an important variable in herder’s decision making as it determines whether they would like to be involved in collective action or not. The higher the level of PPSC, the more likely is the responsiveness and respect of rules governing the use of com-mon resources. Once the PPSC is eroded, and the size of the PPC increases, the more likely is reluctance of herders to respect collective rules governing access, especially the owners of large herds.

There are two important issues. The first issue relates to the changes to the cost structure associated with raising an additional animal on the common pastures while the second relates to the changes of the profitability of the production system associated with raising an additional animal. If we consider that without access to grazing resources, every pastoralist, who wants to raise an animal, would be obliged to purchase the full amount of feed needs – the same as livestock owners operating under intensive livestock production systems. Under such system, therefore, the total costs of raising animals would be equal to the number of animal multiplied by the costs per animal. Adding another animal means raising the total costs.

Therefore, understanding the potential changes of the sizes of PPC and PPSC for the acquisition of an additional animal under various range management sys-tems is critical in the decision making of herders. Moreover, potential changes on the PPSC are a good indicator for assessing the contribution of range resources to the welfare of herders under different management systems. Given the differences of the regions of NW China where the range management options are imple-mented, the marginal costs for adding an additional animal is less important although this is an indicator favored by many analysts. The most important indica-tors, because they show how the costs of adding an additional animal would change, are the changes of private costs (DPPC) and pastoral private saved costs (DPSC) under each system.

The first measurement is easily quantifiable because we can collect information regarding the expenses incurred by every herder household. These costs include feed costs, grazing, water and herd management costs. If we consider that the sum of the changes of PPC and changes of PSC is equal to 1, then we can formalize this situation by the following equation:

i pi pi pi pi si si si siPPC = ( C / C ) / ( H /H ) = 1 (( C / C )/ ( H /H ))∆ ∂ ∂ − ∂ ∂

(∂Cpi/C

pi) indicates changes of private costs for a given herder household with

respect to total costs(∂H

pi/H

pi) indicates changes of herd size for a given herder household with

respect to total herd size(∂C

si/C

si) indicates changes of saved costs for a given herder with respect to total

saved costs(∂H

si/H

si) indicates changes of herd size for a given herder household with

respect to total herd size


Under the customary herding system, it is clear that net collective benefits accrued to all group members are higher than net benefits accrued by acting individually. The main difference being the limited capacity of an individual member to negotiate reciprocal grazing arrangements with neighboring or other herder HH.

When herders augment their herds because they see the profitability of doing so, they will eventually drive to zero the share of saved costs. Under such a case, not only will the herders bear the full costs of raising animals but also generate an externality, for example, land degradation and loss of biodiversity, that they are not paying for and that is negatively affecting the welfare of the whole community. The question then for governments has been on how to make sure that the individual livestock owner does bear some of the costs. As a result, there have been many attempts by different pastoral societies and governments to reduce the share these private saved costs by introducing different management systems for accessing and using the resource while minimizing such externalities on society. It is likely that livestock owners would also be willing to pay a premium to access or participate in collective action in order to lower their private costs. As long as the herders are aware that accepting proposed range management options will continue to be prof-itable, they will be willing to comply with new rules and pay fees.

Under the community system livestock owners see that adding an animal in their herd will reduce their private costs and increase their benefits from the common grazing resources. The incentives to increase flock sizes are real amongst commu-nity members. Adding another animal increases private savings and also reduces private costs. However, when one looks at the profitability of adding another sheep unit to the flock, it clear that even if costs are reduced, the profitability is low.

There should be further reform of the livestock production system and strength-ening of the infrastructure facilities, including marketing, and the further applica-tion of science and technology to improve pastoral development (Chapter 4, Kirychuk and Fritz 2010; Chapter 15, Squires et al. 2010). The shift from the con-ventional pastoral production system to a new system which combines the grazing with the pen-fed enterprises requires a lot more research and investigation (Chapter 9, Zhang et al. 2010). There is a need to conduct trials and further research (espe-cially socio-economic studies) on the linkages between herding and farming activi-ties in order to optimize the sustainable utilization of resources over the large areas of pastoral land (Harris 2009).

There are other important considerations to ensure sound resource management. This includes secure tenure, equity and access, institutional credit, marketing, and legal protection. In any case, the community should be empowered to protect the commons from encroachment, regulate seasonal movements between pastures and arbitrating in local disputes. This would redirect emphasis on the importance of flexible management strategies incorporating seasonal animal movement to make use of the best grasses in a given season or year (Chapter 12, Wang et al. 2010). It is clear that herders in the project area see pasture as having a particular seasonal value; if there is snow, winter pasture does not require water but needs a good windbreak; spring pastures require a position on southern facing slopes where snow


melts more readily and grasses grow quicker; summer pastures require access to water, while autumn pastures require particular grass species that promote lactation and fat accumulation.

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