Adapting to climate change in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, China
Name of sustainable practice or practices Adapting to climate change in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, China
Name of main actor Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in cooperation with several Chinese research institutions
Type of actors involved Research institutions
Livestock Species Cattle, Donkey, Dromedary, Horse, Sheep, Yak
Country China
Agro-ecological region Mountain
Main feature of best practice Improving environmental sustainability including biodiversity conservation
Key features of livestock farming system Pastoral livestock keeping
Year practice/management strategies started to be implemented 2001
Key practices implemented to improve sustainability of livestock management Under the framework of the ACIAR project in Western China aiming to improve farmers’ livelihoods while enabling the rehabilitation of degraded ecosystems and reducing greenhouse gas emissions it was possible to show that animal numbers can be reduced to aid grassland recovery. The project sites are located in open steppes at an altitude between 1500-4000 m. Reducing animal numbers meant that per head production could be increased using existing forage resources, leading to higher prices for better quality animals and higher household incomes. Finding economic solutions that aided grassland improvement were the focal points of this project. Ecological, agronomic, biological and economic information were used to understand and analyse the traditional management practices of Chinese herders and build computer models to explore how financial and environmental outcomes of farmers’ practices can be changed.
Key impacts of the best practices on sustainability of farming system It is expected that in the longer-term the rehabilitation of grasslands will lead to more carbon storage in soils and more diverse ecosystems. Methane production is expected to be reduced. If animal numbers are reduced by 50%, this means the remaining animals grow faster so they reach marketable size quicker, leading to a reduction in methane production by 50% or more over the life of the animals. The output of methane per unit of animal production is also considerably less. Rehabilitation of China’s grasslands is likely to produce other significant outcomes. More grass will slow the flow of water over these landscapes, which will not only contribute to further reducing the soil-erosion problems that underlie some of Asia’s worst dust storms, but also reduce siltation in watercourses such as the Yellow River – China’s mother river.
Constraints and opportunities observed during implementation of described practices • About 90% of China’s grasslands are considered degraded to some degree and the desert areas they border in the west have been expanding. Despite the hardships, an estimated 40 million people in northern and western China, in some of the world’s more impoverished communities, rely directly on these grazing lands for survival.
• Policies to impose grazing bans have provided some compensation to herders, but arguably this is not sufficient to provide a long-term solution to problems caused by overgrazing.
• In 2002, many ecological and agronomic aspects of the grasslands were being researched by scientists and institutions within China. However, little had been done to integrate the results of this work into developing practical and effective solutions.
• It became clear that answers to those questions would require shifts in practices that have been developed over thousands of years. The core issue was how to help herders shift from managing survival to achieving more production and income, while also reducing pressure on the grasslands. Over-grazing was widely acknowledged and the livestock were severely restricted by forage supply. Stock numbers had increased four-fold since 1950 as response to rising human population and governmental policies and programs. Converting grasslands into croplands had exacerbated the problem.
• Livestock management practices based on community behaviour of farmers turned out to be sometimes counter-productive. Herdsmen let their animals graze every day with disregard to scarcity of feed supply and weather conditions.
• If half the animals are sold then that provides cash that can be used to better feed and house the remaining animals, resulting in further gains in production. This is more cost effect than borrowing finance. Animals to be culled are those that are not contributing to overall production, and the best animals are kept. Unfortunately traders often insist on buying the better animals and herders can be left with the least useful animals. Learning to deal with traders is an important skill. Farmers started to recognize that despite the fact that their wealth was often measured by flock size, the quality of their animals is more important than how big the flock or herd is.
