How to Develop Grass-based Livestock Husbandry in Areas of Low- and Middle-yield Fields

Subjects: Other Disciplines >> Synthetic discipline submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《中国科学院院刊》

高树琴 王竑晟 段瑞 景海春 方精云

Abstract： With increasing awareness of balanced and healthy diet, the demand for ruminant products has been drastically increasing in China over the past decades. Grass-based Livestock Husbandry (GLiH), a new paradigm for agricultural restructuring and sustainable development, is highly encouraged to meet such demand. Yet, the country’s own production cannot self-support the demand, as envisaged by the soaring import of both red meats and forage products, albeit half of the nation’s cereal production is devoted to animal feed and forage crop production area amounts to 12 million ha. With the affluent population and limited arable land, China is facing challenge to explore possible land areas for GLiH development. We argue that one of the effective ways is to transform the lowand middle-yield fields, which account for over 70% of the cultivated lands, into forage crop production. Our analysis indicated that cultivation of forage crops could avoid the risks of low yield and low economic returns frequently occurring for cereal production on such lands. Furthermore, a forage-cereal rotation cropping system can significantly increase dry mass production, reduce the incidence of pest and disease damage, and ameliorate soil physical and chemical properties by improving soil organic matter, soil fertility and reducing salt and alkaline constraints. Three scenarios have been projected for the potential of the exploitation of low- and middleyielding land for livestock production, and the amount of the red meat production is estimated to be 17.98, 21.58, and 26.98 million tons, respectively, which are 1.6, 1.9, and 2.4 times of the current production nationwide. A case study for Shandong Province is further presented, demonstrating that exploring the saline-alkali land at the Yellow River Delta for forage crop production could substantially alleviate the shortage of forage supplies and optimize the agricultural infrastructure of the province.

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