Grass Farming: A Solution for Inner Mongolia's Expanding Deserts?

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This spring, northwestern China has endured some of the worst sandstorms in recent memory, resulting in severe air pollution, economic losses, and casualties throughout the region. As images of Beijing’s yellow skies make international headlines and Chinese officials pour billions of yuan into anti-desertification projects, Inner Mongolia continues to lose its topsoil and local herders lack grassland space on which to graze their cattle. Deserts already account for 18 percent of China’s land area and are expanding by two million hectares annually. Photos of empty villages buried by the encroaching dunes and of goats whose coats have been picked bare by severely malnourished herd members bear witness to this growing tragedy.

Scientists, academics, and policymakers alike have sought to remedy this environmental and economic nightmare. Most blame a combination of population growth and climate change in Inner Mongolia, which has resulted in dryer conditions and excessive grazing and cultivation of the land. Da Lintai, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who has studied the region in depth, explains that with an estimated carrying capacity of 700,000 people and 30 million animals, Inner Mongolia simply cannot support its current levels of 32 million people and 62 million domesticated animals.

Efforts so far have focused on decreasing the number of livestock and increasing the vegetative cover in the region. Officials have already spent 55.8 billion yuan (US$7 billion) on projects ranging from planting a shelterbelt forest outside Beijing, to a “grain for green” program subsidizing tree and grass planting in Inner Mongolia, to building settlements where nomadic herders can transition to industrial work and other forms of livelihood.

But these efforts are not enough, despite assertions by the State Forestry Administration that all of China’s desertified lands can be reclaimed by 2050. Not only does Inner Mongolia’s desertification threaten traditional livelihoods, but government policies to solve the problem are introducing further social and economic change. By making local residents dependent on outside supplies and industries, settlement programs do little more than transfer the population pressure to croplands elsewhere in China and abroad, while failing to address the local human interactions with the environment. Furthermore, the government’s focus on settlement exacerbates historical tensions between sedentary Han agriculturalists and native nomadic tribes and undermines the unique adaptation of nomadic herders to their desert environment.

Timothy Shell, Operations Manager for MCD Livestock Co. Ltd in northeastern China, believes he may have part of the answer to these challenges. On his 400-hectare farm in Jilin Province, Shell is experimenting with a method of grassland remediation that uses intensively managed, mixed grazing of large and small ruminants, including cattle, as a restorative tool. This so-called “grass farming,” originally promoted in Europe in the 1940s, has matured into an art and science worldwide, including in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Under this system, grass harvesting by cattle begins at the moment in the plant’s lifecycle that is most beneficial to both the animal’s nutritional balance and the continued productivity of the grass. This stimulates the natural succession of improved native grass species over poorer-quality plants.

A mentoring relationship with Joel Salatin, U.S. sustainable agriculture expert and the founder of Polyface Farm in Virginia, provided the basis for Shell’s nearly two decades of work in healing grasslands. After observing the thriving grasslands of Polyface, Shell has successfully mimicked this process on three farms since 1990, and has managed MCD’s operations in Jilin since 2003. “We’ve been applying the same techniques here, half a world away, and the results are equally exciting,” says Shell. “By 2008 we should have some of the best grass in our locality. I’d love to have a chance to practice these healing arts on a piece of Inner Mongolia.”   

When done properly, grass farming can maximize the capacity of the land to support human activities, explains Shell. “Where grass farming grazing techniques are applied, the land can eventually support two or three times the livestock of land grazed freely. And it does so without the use of grass seeds, chemical fertilizers, or fancy equipment,” he adds. Using simple mobile electric fences, large groups of animals can be moved easily and their grazing patterns closely controlled. For these reasons, grass farming is increasingly popular among ranchers worldwide for its ecological and economic benefits. “With this method, everyone gains,” notes Shell. “The grasslands thrive, the animals are better nourished, and the herders get to keep their livelihoods. Combined with low-cost irrigation, the productivity of permanent grassland multiplies exponentially.”

The potential environmental, social, and economic benefits for Inner Mongolia and other sandstorm-affected areas are obvious to Shell, who has seen first-hand the devastation caused by desertification. “Inner Mongolian farmers do not have a grass problem, or a desert problem,” he contends. “They have a management problem. They have wonderful resources, but correct management is lacking. Let’s change that. Let’s give the farmers there the tools and training they need to build better grass, better soil, and better livelihoods.” Shell’s company has set up an experimental ecological farm with plans to build a training center to demonstrate grass farming and other environmentally sound management practices. If successful, it would mean a lot more than just blue skies for Beijing.