The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has long been concerned with pastoral development issues, both through various field-based activities and through its Regular Programme work.
The primary focus of FAO’s activities is to improve food security; one way to achieve this is through the development of sustainable agricultural and pastoral systems. Pastoral development and the study of transhumant systems have been focus areas of the Grassland and Pasture Crops Group within FAO’s Crop and Grassland Service.
The Grassland and Pasture Crops Group has for a number of years implemented some of its field activities through various Working Groups, formed on the basis of similarity of ecological and production systems. In temperate Asia, it was agreed that there was a general lack of knowledge about transhumant production systems. Therefore, since the mid-1990s, the Grassland and Pasture Crops Group has supported the production of a number of case studies, mostly of transhumant systems, through the Temperate Asia Pasture and Fodder Working Group or Network. This work has been complemented by additional studies, including on transhumant systems and haymaking in Mongolia; grassland studies and work on the development of cold-tolerant lucerne in China; and a number of studies of country pasture resources.
Following the International Year of Mountains, for which FAO was the lead agency, it is hoped that this publication will contribute to our understanding and better use of the vast grasslands in mountain and plateau areas of temperate Asia, and support the conservation and sustainable development of mountain regions.
The contributions of authors and the considerable input made by the editors are much appreciated by FAO in its efforts to disseminate information on pastoral systems and transhumance. Thanks are particularly due to retired staff member James Suttie and to Stephen Reynolds of the Grassland and Pasture Crops Group of the Crop and Grassland Service for ensuring that the book was brought to publication.
Mahmoud Solh
Director
Plant Production and
Protection Division
FAO Agriculture Department
