On The Sustainable Development Policy Of Meat Sheep Industry In China’s Grassland

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the improvement of people’s living level, especially the upgrading of dietary structure, the sheepmeat supply has been fallen short of demand in recent years, and the prices have inevitably been rising. Meat sheep industry in grassland plays an irreplaceable role in increasing herders’ income, maintaining the social harmony and political stability in pastoral area of minority nationalities. However, the sustainable development of such a prosperous industry is confronted with the following challenges:severer constraints of resources and environment, low-level of industrial organization, little room for efficiency improving, and the laggard production mode.As a systematic view of development, sustainable development coordinates objects of economy, ecology and society; therefore it accords with the goal of developing meat sheep in China’s grassland region. On the basis of the theory of Sustainable development, Institutional economics, Industrial ecology, Policy evaluation study and Externality, this study investigated the reality, indicated the major factors influencing the sustainable development of meat sheep in China and their working mechanism. The policy on the sustainable development of meat sheep industry in China’s grassland region is established on the mainly-market oriented-resource-allocation basis. The working mechanism can be concluded in five aspects: to make the property right configuration better; to optimize the industrial organization; to promote technological progress; to protect the ecological environment; to provide public services. Due to its characteristics, such a policy can effectively impact on the universal problem where market alone cannot well function. By combining the normative analysis and the positive analysis, this study evaluated the institution and policy of about property grassland, industrial organization, production subsidies, ecological compensation and the public service for meat sheep industry from aspects of policies’back ground, objectives, content and effect.The main findings are:(1) The sustainable development for meat sheep industry is a systematic integration of multiple objects, which requires the coordination of different polices.(2) The Grassland Household Contract System, which clarified established ownership, increases the meat sheep supply, enhances herders’revenue and alleviates "tragedy of the commons". There is no obvious connection between the household contract system and using grassland by small farms.(3) Industrial management efficiency has been self-sustaining economically and developing, which consists for economic restrictions for the sustainability; agricultural industrialization policies optimize the structure of the scattered industry and improve benefits of the industry; the leading enterprises are leading the industrialization, and the cooperatives are the key to deepen industrialization.(4) Intensive feeding based on technological progress improves the production efficiency; production subsidies succeed in both protecting environment and increasing herders’earnings under reduction of meat sheep raised.(5) Grassland ecological protection subsidies reward mechanism controls the accelerating deterioration of grassland ecology preliminarily. It alleviates the overgrazing hardship, and partly compensates herdsman’s loss caused by grazing prohibition and "Balance of Forage and Livestock".(6) Policy on the major disease prevention and control and agricultural technology extension have achieved initial success, which ensures the sustainable development.The innovations of the study includes:(1) It accomplished a new framework of interpretation for mechanism of grassland degradation beyond the property right system.(2) It analyzed and demonstrated that meat sheep production subsidies should be built on the basis of the technological progress;(3) Empirical data from questionnaire survey confirmed differences on balance between forage and animal between various size framings. It proposed to turn the objects of reward of balance between forage and animal to small and medium size herders.