The Development Mode And Path Of Pastoral Griculture In Xining City, Qinghai Province

Xining is located in farming-pastoral zone of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which has many advantages for developing pastoral agriculture such as suitabal location, abundant natural resources and proper climate conditions. The grassland grazing capacity has been decreasing in recent years, and the number of herbivorous livestock has also decreased. Xining faces serious challenges on the supply of meat and milk, which makes the development of pastoral agriculture necessary. In addition, good public base and market infrastructure, in combination with the grassland ecological protection and subsidy incentives provides favorable opportunities for the development of pastoral agriculture for Xining, however, the development is also restricted by poor recognition of famer, lack of forage seeds, insufficient financial support, and backward in technical service. This study reviewed the development of pastoral agriculture in abroad and domestic, analyzed the achievements and deficiencies of the animal industry in Xining, and provided three typical pastoral agriculture management patterns. The three patterns are as follows:(1)“Cooperatives grow forage by order + enterprises raising livestocks” pattern. Cooperatives should expend the scale of forage cultivation, enrich the forage grass varieties, improve the production efficiency, reduce production cost and risk, and improve the degree of organization to promoting the farmers’ income. The government should extend the industry chain through the introduction of forage processing enterprises.(2) “Farmers rent land + forage processing enterprise employ farmers” pattern. Through the land rent, further expanding the scale of forage grass planting, cultivating growing enterprises, exploiting the redundant rural labor force and promoting the income of farmers and enterprises. To further improve the natural grassland grazing utilization of scientific and reasonable to forage planting combined with cattle and sheep breeding, improve the comprehensive benefit, to facilitate the sustainable development.(3) “Stall feeding + natural pasture grazing” pattern. Expending the scale of raising households, developing the artificial grassland, providing high quality forage grass for captive supplementary feeding, and utilizing natural grassland in summer and autumn to ensure the balance of forage supply and demand and improve livestock raising efficiency. At the same time, it is enssential to establish and improve the related security measures to keep large capital chain and effectively avoid risk. The introduction of forage processing, animal products processing, waste utilization, harmless system is also very important for extending the industry chain and improving the economic benifits.After a comprehensive investigation and analysis, we proposed several suggestions for the sustainable development of pastoral agriculture in Xining:(1) Developing the pastoral agriculture is one of the most important task in the present and in the future;(2) Promoting the pastoral agriculture to be one of the major parts in agriculture in the future;(3) It is suggested to apply the “Cooperative + farmers + enterprise” patterns;(4) Industrialization and scaled up development are suggested;(5) Multiple developing structures such as “Forage planting + livestock raising”, “stall feeding + grassland grazing”, and “planting + forage processing”, are feasible for Xining;(6) Three counties in Xining should fully rely on their own resources advantage, as well as learn advanced techniques from each other to develop featured and high-efficiency pastoral agriculture.In conclusion, the development of pastoral agriculture in Xining should learn advanced techniques from different patterns and apply “cooperative + farmers + enterprise” patterns. Strengthening industrialization and scaled-up planting and raising on the base of multiple developing structures such as “Forage planting + livestock raising”, “stall feeding + grassland grazing”, and “planting + forage processing”, and making the pastoral agriculture to be one of the major parts in agriculture in the future, and then helping to improve the production efficiency of agriculture and the income of farmers.