The Study On The Development Of Animal Husbandry And The Ecological Construction Model On Typical Steppe In Inner Mongolia

To search for the sustainable development in the northern China's grassland regions vulnerable to land desertification, a village in Kesheketeng Banner of Inner Mongolia was selected as a model"Eco-village"for its coordinated economical development and eco-environmental sustainability. Natural resources and production conditions, as well as social-economical status in the village were investigated in order to find the reasons of grassland degradation and find mitigating ways for the difficulties encountered in the village development. The main findings from this research are summarized as follows:(1)Grassland condition: Plant communities in the grassland showed an obvious degradation trend. In plant composition, gramineae plant decreased rapidly, leguminous plant remains more or less unchanged, while compositae plants represented by Artemisia frigida became major component in the grassland communities. Weedy species such as Potentilla bifurca, Potentilla tanacetifolia, Carex tristachya, Potentilla acaulis and Salsola collina became frequent species and took a large percentage in biomass. Under different grassland utilizations, seasonally rested grassland had more plant species (more than 20 species) than the others. Grassland of whole-year resting showed similar plant composition with the others. Grassland primary productivity decreased year be year.(2)Production structure in the eco-village is simple, mainly relying on animal husbandry in the grasslands. Animal production was the main income source, which took 87% of the household total revenue. The output for animal production was only 45% of the household output, while the expenditures on education and daily living took more 40% of the output budget.(3)Seasonal feed-animal imbalance was obvious in the eco-village, and showed an increasing trend in the recent years. In the years 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07, herbage on the grassland were enough for animal consumption during the summer seasons, but deficient in the winter seasons. In the year 2007-08 (a severe drought year), feed-animal imbalance extended to almost the whole year. (4)The reasons for grassland degradation was considered to be mainly because of the too heavy reliance of livelihood on grassland. Over-grazing and unrational utilization of the grassland during the sensitive season (spring season) were considered the direct reasons responsible for the grassland rapid degradation.(5)Some suggestions were made for a sustainable development of the eco-village based on the research findings. An animal production system of"shed feeding–grassland grazing– grazing plus shed feeding"was proposed in which the grassland is grazing banned from March, animal grazing on grassland during July to November, and supplementary feeding the animals during December-March period. Villagers should also be encouraged to find alternative livelihood in order to increase family income and to release the grazing pressures on grassland.