Abstract
The grassland animal system in Inner Mongolia and other pastoral areas of China, which was transformed over the 4 decades following liberation in 1949 from a nomadic system to a semi-nomadic one, is currently partially sedentary and partially semi-nomadic. An explanation of the transformation process is provided along with the historical cultural setting. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), the same methodology used in an evaluation of the transformation during the early 1990s in the case study site in northeastern Inner Mongolia, is presented in this article. An economic and technical analysis is also reported on about options for structural change in the grasslands over the next quarter century. The analysis involves a shift from an integrated cow/calf and growing-fattening system on the grasslands, to shipping calves from the grasslands to the cropping areas of north central China for growing and fattening. It is concluded that grazing land producers would obtain more net income from selling weaned calves rather than fattened animals. Furthermore, nationally, the country would benefit considerably through reduced use of feedstuffs..
