Grassland overgrazing is one of the main causes for grassland degradation and desertification. Grassland-livestock balance monitoring, evaluation and management are therefore important for grassland vegetation recovery and reconstruction. A research team led by Professor XU Bin from Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of CAAS has made breakthrough in evaluating the balance between grassland productivity and livestock grazing capacity in pastoral and semi-pastoral counties of China.

Based on the analysis of factors including total forage reserve and livestock standard feed intake, etc., XU and his research team worked out the proper livestock grazing capacity and integrated the actual grazing rate to construct the index of grassland-livestock balance. Their results showed that the average index of grassland-livestock balance was 33.58% in 264 pastoral counties and semi-pastoral counties in 2008, indicating that the grassland was overgrazed in general. The index of grassland-livestock balance of 120 pastoral counties and 144 semi-pastoral counties were respectively 27.37% and 42.07%.

Based on the above results, the researchers suggest reducing the number of livestock in these overgrazing areas to keep the proper grazing capacity and adding the artificial feed supplement to reduce grazing pressure. With high population density and high grazing intensity, semi-pastoral counties should be major concerns in the grassland-livestock balance management. Efforts should be made to add agriculture and forestry byproduct as feed supplement so as to protect the grassland resources and keep the balance of grassland ecosystem.

This research achievement was published in the recent issue of Geographic Research (2012.11).