Study On The Impacts Of Herdsmen Adaptive Behavior Under Extreme Climate On Livestock Production Efficiency And Its Sustainable Development

With the increasing trend of global warming,the frequency of extreme weather events is also changing,showing an increasing trend.The Inner Mongolia Steppe,located in the middle of Eurasia Steppe,is a transition zone from northwest arid area to northeast humid area and north China dry farming area.The intensity,duration and frequency of heat-related extreme weather events in inner Savanes Region have significantly increased,and droughts,snowstorms and sandstorms have occurred continuously for many years,accompanied by extreme heat and cold waves.Extreme weather events have seriously affected the livestock production activities of herdsmen and hindered the sustainable development of animal husbandry.As the direct perceiver of extreme climate,the herdsmen are also the basic units of livestock production activities,so as to enhance the adaptive behavior of herdsmen in coping with extreme climate events,assessing the impact of adaptive behaviour is key to changing the vulnerability of herders and ensuring their standard of living.Therefore,this thesis evaluates the effectiveness of Herdsmen’s adaptive behavior from the perspective of livestock production efficiency and its sustainable development on the premise of herdsmen’s perception of extreme weather events,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to improve the ability of herdsmen to adapt to extreme climate events.Based on the above background,this thesis applies climate change adaptation theory,technical efficiency theory and animal husbandry sustainable development theory,a study was conducted to examine the effects of adaptation to extreme weather events on herdsmen in Wulatehou Banner and Siziwang Banner,Inner Mongolia,the aim is to improve the long-term adaptability of herdsmen,promote their active adaptation,improve the production efficiency of animal husbandry and promote the sustainable development of animal husbandry.The study included:(1)This thesis makes a descriptive statistical analysis of herdsmen’s perception of extreme weather events and their selection of adaptive behaviors.Most of the herdsmen were aware of sandstorms,droughts and heavy snow.98.26% of the herdsmen believed that extreme weather events would affect livestock production.Herdsmen often choose simple and easy to operate,relatively low-cost adaptive behavior,59.28% of herdsmen will take more than 4 kinds of adaptive behavior.(2)To analyze the effect of the adaptive behavior of herdsmen on the production efficiency of animal husbandry.By constructing DEA model,the production efficiency of herdsmen in the study area is concentrated in the range of 0.3 ～ 0.4,with an average value of 0.45.Then,the Tobit model was used to analyze the impact of herdsmen’s adaptive behavior on livestock production efficiency and the heterogeneity of Herdsmen’s adaptive behavior under different extreme weather events,the results showed that the adaptive behavior of purchasing forage and increasing the number of days in captivity increased the production efficiency of animal husbandry by 24.25% and 13.23%,respectively,increasing the number of days in captivity and the adaptive behavior of building or maintaining sheds increased the livestock production efficiency by 24.9% and 15.9%,respectively,the effects of these two adaptive behaviors on animal production efficiency were not significant.(3)To analyze the influence of the adaptive behavior of herdsmen on the sustainable development of animal husbandry.The improvement of animal production efficiency depends on grassland ecosystem,and the effective adaptive behavior is not only reflected in the improvement of animal production efficiency,but also reflected in the long-term viability of the ecosystem.Therefore,the Sustainable Development Index of animal husbandry in the study area is 0.243,which is at a low level.The OLS model was used to analyze the impact of the adaptive behavior of herdsmen on the sustainable development of animal husbandry.The results showed that the adaptive behavior of herdsmen to drill wells improved the Sustainable Development Index of animal husbandry by 4.38%,purchasing animal husbandry insurance and co-grazing can increase the sustainable development index of animal husbandry by 2.53% and 0.01%,respectively,the sale of weak livestock can increase the production efficiency of animal husbandry and the Sustainable Development Index of animal husbandry by 2.06%.Based on the above research contents and conclusions,this thesis puts advice,such as increasing the investment of supporting facilities for animal husbandry,strengthening the awareness of herdsmen in propaganda and education,and widening the access channels of climate information,etc.,the aim is to improve the ability of pastoralists to adapt to extreme weather events,thereby increasing the efficiency of livestock production and promoting the sustainable development of livestock production,it is of certain reference significance for herdsmen to adopt adaptive behavior in other pastoral areas of China.