market transition

Having been liberated from state quotas on the number of goats they can own, the herders are free to expand the size of their herds as their pro

In Mongolia, agriculture is of paramount importance. Before the transition in power through a peaceful revolution to a democratic government in 1992, agriculture was completely controlled by the state. Production dropped dramatically as the sector transitioned to be market-driven but since the mid-2000s there has been a recovery with government programs mixing with market-driven incentives.

n the 1990s, Mongolia abandoned its communist system of government and with it, strict quotas on the number of grazing animals allowed across the vast grasslands. Since then, the country has gone from 20 million grazing livestock to 61.5 million, eating their way across the land. When animals eat more plants than can grow back naturally, the landscape begins to shift in subtle ways. Plants become sparser and patchy and dead areas emerge, which accelerates soil erosion. Native grasses are replaced with poisonous, inedible species.

After the collapse of the communist Mongolian People’s Republic in 1990, Mongolia abandoned the quota system that previously governed the number of animals permitted to graze on its lands. Since then, its grazing livestock population has jumped from 20 million to 61.5 million. Goats now account for more than half of all livestock, which has proven environmentally disastrous: Goats eat the roots and flowers needed to seed new grasses, so when a herd uproots a pasture, what grows back is sparser and often poisonous (inedible plants generally replace native grasses). Unmoored soil is swept up into dust storms, reaching as far south as Beijing and Hong Kong.

market transition Sustainability or productivity issues can generally be explained by the transition from a command economy to a free market system. Specific factors here may include the lack of #governance or #inadequate-investments. The abandonment of quotas may also be associated with a tragedy of the commons scenario.