Research On The Efficiency Of Grass-based Livestock Husbandry Production

As an important green ecological barrier of our country,grassland's ecological function is always on the top of its list.The protection of ecological security of grassland has also become the key task for implementing the instruction of vigorously promoting ecological civilization construction proposed in the 18 th National Congress of CPC.However,recent years,under the dual influences of increasing intensified human activities and climate change process,the ecological environment of grassland has faced great threats and challenges.Grassland also has an important production function,due to the transformation of residents' dietary structure,the consumption of grain is decreasing while the demand for livestock products(meat,milk,and eggs)is increasing.However,the structure of agricultural industry has not been adjusted in time with changes in market consumer demand,resulting in an imbalance between supply and demand in agricultural product market.Besides,as the most basic input factor of livestock products,sufficient and high-quality forage grass is the fundamental guarantee of sustainable supply of livestock products.However,the traditional production mode of grass-based livestock husbandry supported by the natural forage grass cannot meet the strong market demand for livestock products.As a result,a large number of livestock products are dependent on imports,and the degree of dependence on foreign countries is increasing,which seriously threatens China's food security.In the context of tightening source constraints and the surge in market demand,improving the efficiency level of grass-based livestock husbandry production by the transformation and upgrading of production mode is undoubtedly an important way to guarantee the ecological safety of grassland as well as enhance its production function and expand its economic output so that to achieve sustainable development.In this research,the efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry production under different production modes of grass-based livestock husbandry was deeply analyzed from the aspects of efficiency measurement,efficiency convergence,efficiency influencing factors and efficiency economic spillover effect in Hulun Buir.Firstly,grassland's supply capacity was analyzed from the aspects of ecology and production based on clarifying the change of grassland resources,and the current condition of grass-based livestock husbandry's development was analyzed from both supply and demand side in combination with the change of market consumer demand.Secondly,using the Supper Efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis(SE-DEA)model and the Stochastic Frontier Analysis(SFA)model,combing with statistical data and survey data,taking the Net Primary Productivity(NPP)as an ecologicalvariable into production function to evaluate the quality and productivity of grassland,the efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry production under traditional production mode was calculated from the aspects of macroscopic(county)and microcosmic(herdsmen),and the key influencing factors were identified.Thirdly,the production level and development advantages of new production mode supported by artificial forage grass relative to traditional production mode supported by natural forage grass were clarified by comparing the traditional production mode and new production mode.Fourthly,the economic spillover effects of all agricultural sectors brought about by efficiency changes induced by the transformation of production mode were made clear based on the Orani-G model.Finally,policy recommendations were made to promote the development of grass-based livestock husbandry based on the results,main conclusions are as follows:(1)In terms of analysis of the current status of grass-based livestock husbandry development,from an overall perspective,the supply capacity of the Hulun Buir grassland ecosystem has remained at a relatively low level in recent years.Grassland variation as a whole appears to show the tendency of supporting the expansion of other ecosystem areas at the cost of its area reduction.The pressure on grassland ecological protection is increasing,and the ecological functions have been difficult to meet the strategic needs to ensure national ecological security.Although its production and support capacity has been improved,the increase of liquid milk output took the lead while the increase of meat output was small.And the production function of grassland is also hard to meet the strategic need of ensuring national food security.Combined with the changes in market consumer demand,the current condition of grass-based livestock husbandry mainly includes five aspects: the mismatch of grain production structure and consumption structure;the increasing dependence on imports of forage and livestock products which is threatening China's food security;the ecological pressure of grassland is increasing,the supply capacity of natural grassland is weak;grass-based livestock husbandry is weak in science and technology,making it hard to ensure the quality of grass-based livestock products;the overall design of industrial chain is lacking,grass-based livestock husbandry has not formed a complete industrial system.(2)In terms of the efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry production in the dimension of counties.In 2001,the technical efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry in counties was at a low level except for Xin Barag Right Banner and Zhalantun.In 2016,the technical efficiency of counties in semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral area was generally higher than that of the pastoral areas,showing a technology leadership.In terms of dynamic variation,the change range of some counties is large.As a whole,it shows a trend that the counties located in the semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral area catching up with the pastoral areas and expanding their technical advantages continuously.Technological progress has become a driving force to stimulate the increase of technical efficiency.In terms of spatial variation,the variation in technical efficiency of all counties obviously showed unconditional ?convergence and conditional ? convergence.Among them,from 2001 to 2005,there was an unconditional ? convergence tendency,indicating the catch-up effect between technically backward counties and technically advanced ones.From 2006 to 2016,the tendency became divergent,demonstrating the constantly prominent technology leadership of counties in semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral area.The result of conditional ? convergence showed that technical efficiency would eventually converge to a stable level,and there were convergent characteristics of developing towards the same.In addition,precipitation,scientific research input,human capital input,scale management and grassland management policies will have positive impacts on technical efficiency.(3)In terms of the efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry production in the dimension of herdsmen.The efficiency level of herdsmen's grass-based livestock husbandry production is quite different in Hulun Buir,and there are some problems such as low level of technology and mechanization,extensive production mode,weak ability to adapt to extreme weather disasters and lack of measure to tackle the issue.At present,the traditional production mode of grass-based livestock husbandry greatly affected by extreme weather disasters mainly relies on the supply of natural grassland,leading to the low and unstable yield of natural forage grass,and extreme drought is the main meteorological disaster,responsible for the most serious economic losses of grass-based livestock husbandry production.Therefore,the insufficient supply of forage caused by extreme drought is the key factor that restricts the improvement of efficiency.In addition,although the herdsmen's adaptive measures,which mainly focus on “purchasing forage” and “selling livestock”,have a positive effect on improving technical efficiency,they are all helpless measures chosen to reduce economic losses and have not achieved resources.In essence,the optimal utilization of resource has not been realized,and there is inefficiency in the process of production and management of grass-based livestock husbandry.While improving the efficiency level of herdsmen's grass-based livestock husbandry production,it is necessary to control the carry capacity of livestock.And properly enhance the mobility of livestock by means of joint household operation,community co-management,so as to achieve benign disaster avoidance.(4)In terms of the efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry production in the dimension of pasture,the traditional production mode of grass-based livestock husbandry supported by the natural forage grass has the problems such as low resource utilization rate,grassland ecology is under great pressure,etc.However,the new production mode of grass-based livestock husbandry supported by the artificial forage grass in Teni He Pasture and Xier Tala Pasture in the ecological engineering pilot zone could better coordinate the ecological and economic benefits,and has relatively high efficiency level and economic development potential.Moreover,artificial grassland can realize high-yield and high-efficiency forage supply.In the pastures,artificial grassland,which cover an area of 10% of its total grassland area,can meet the total forage grass needs.When the ratio is increased to 30%,the production scale of grass-based livestock husbandry can be expanded by 1.7 times.On the whole,the new production mode of grass-based livestock husbandry supported by the artificial forage grass is conductive to achieve the strategic goals of China's ecological security and food security.(5)In terms of the economic spillover effects of grass-based livestock husbandry on agricultural sectors brought about by efficiency changes.Improving Total Factor Productivity(TFP)would lead to a prominent increase in GDP,the gross export value,and the pre-tax gross import value.On this basis,the improvement of technical efficiency will further strengthen the above impacts,vice versa,indicatingthat improve TFP and technical efficiency will cause opposite influences on agricultural sectors to those of declining technical efficiency.In addition,efficiency changes have the greatest influence on the production of grass-based livestock husbandry,efficiency improvement would also lead to an increase in the output of agricultural products,especially in the increase supply of livestock products,which in turn will lead to a decrease in the price of various agricultural products.Considering the strong demand for livestock products in the agricultural market,the increase in output and the decrease in price would inevitably lead to an increase in demand and a corresponding decrease in the demand for alternatives(grain products),and more workforce employment would be created due to efficiency increase.The results indicate that improving the production efficiency of grass-based livestock husbandry by the transformation and upgrading of production mode is conducive to optimizing the agricultural production structure,meeting the consumption demand of market,improving the living standards of herdsman and promoting the sustainable development of grassland pastoral areas.Based on the results,the policy recommendations was extracted to promote the development of grass-based livestock husbandry in eight aspects,including increasing the investment of scientific research on grass-based livestock husbandry to enhance the market competitiveness of grass-based livestock products;improving the measure of disaster warning and response to enhance the level of adaptive management;transforming the production pattern of grass-based livestock husbandry to realize grassland ecosystem replacement;optimizing the management pattern of grass-based livestock husbandry to weaken the dependence on grassland herding;delimiting the red line between grassland resources and ecological protection to restore the ecological function of grassland;increasing grassland ecosystem compensatory input to advance its ecological compensatory mechanism;intensifying the supply-side reform in agricultural to achieve the optimization and upgrade of the industrial structure;establishing the industrial system of grass-based livestock husbandry to boost the sustainable development of grassland areas.