On the winter pastures of the Gannan Plateau, herdsman Dori and her flock.
The golden meadows stretch to the top of the mountains, the snow on the top of the mountain and the white clouds shake hands and embrace, the black yaks and white Tibetan sheep are dotted, and the winter Gannan Plateau has not yet snowed, so deep and so gentle.
The leaves of the roadside grass had faded, and the stems were covered with tassels, dense and fluffy, and the breeze passed by, as if someone was caressing the plush on the carpet with his hand. "This grass grows so well!Qi Xiao, deputy director of the grass industry department of the National Animal Husbandry General Station, sighed.
The grass of the grassland grows better, which is inseparable from the implementation of the subsidy and incentive policy for grassland ecological protection. Since 2011, China has implemented the grassland compensation policy, continuously increased the implementation of the grazing ban and the grass-livestock balance system, and ensured that 1.2 billion mu of grassland has implemented a ban on grazing, and 2.6 billion mu of grassland has implemented a grass-livestock balance. With the strong support of the Ministry of Finance and other departments, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Department of Planning and Finance, the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, the National Animal Husbandry Station and other departments and institutions have continuously strengthened information management and supervision and inspection to ensure the smooth implementation of the policy.
At present, the grassland subsidy policy has been implemented in the third round, which is the policy with the largest investment scale, the widest coverage and the most benefits for herdsmen in China's grassland pastoral areas. Recently, the reporter walked into Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, and saw that the grassland compensation policy has brought great changes to the herdsmen in the pastoral areas.
The grass grows taller and the ecology is beautiful.
What has changed in the grasslands in recent years?"The grass has become taller", "the Daxia River has become clearer", and "there are more wolves", these are the words that the herdsmen in Xiahe County say the most.
Xiahe County is located in the northeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with an average altitude of more than 3,000 meters, and is distributed with vast meadows and grasslands. Among the county's available natural grasslands, 1.55 million mu are forbidden to graze and enclosed for management, and cattle and sheep are prohibited from grazing, and 6.04 million mu are managed in a balanced manner for grass and livestock, and the carrying capacity of livestock should be controlled within a reasonable range.
After the implementation of the grassland compensation policy, the grass in the grassland of Xiahe County has become higher and higher year by year, and the vegetation has become more and more abundant year by year. In 2022, the average vegetation height in the grass-livestock balance area of Xiahe County was 2451 cm, 038 cm;The average above-ground biomass was 5091 kg hectares, an increase of 87 over the previous year15 kg ha.
The vegetation is dense, the wind and sand are smaller, and the soil erosion is reduced, which not only improves the grassland ecology, but also conserves the water source of the Yellow River. The Daxia River, which flows through Xiahe County, is an important tributary of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, like a winding and long Hada, connecting the northeast foot of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at one end and the Liujiaxia of the Yellow River at the other.
In order to conserve water sources and protect plateau wetlands, the third round of grassland subsidy policy in Gansu Province implemented differentiated subsidy standards according to local conditions, and specially divided the Yellow River Basin in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, because the grasslands in this region are mainly alpine meadows, and the subsidy for grazing prohibition and grass-livestock balance are significantly higher than those in other regions, which is also in line with local conditions. Fang Baohua, chief pastor of the Gansu Provincial Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, said.
The grass grows, the wildlife increases, and the grassland becomes lively.
There are more wolves in the steppe, and they used to be only active at night, but now they can be seen during the day. Sanji Dongzhibu, a herdsman from Anaqi Village, Yaliji Township, Xiahe County, recounted, "I have seen wolves on the road three times this year. ”
Wild boars also increased. According to officials in Damai Township, Xiahe County, wild boars have even begun to cause headaches for local farmers and herdsmen because they destroy barley and soybeans, and farmers and herdsmen rely on agricultural insurance to make up for their losses.
In addition to wolves and wild boars, herders have also spotted other wild animals, such as pheasants, Tibetan foxes, and herds of red deer.
The most exciting thing is that the snow leopard is also coming. In 2021, in the Daliga Mountains of Ganga Town, Xiahe County, a clear image of a wild snow leopard was taken for the first time. In addition to Xiahe County, snow leopards have been found in Maqu, Luqu, Diebu and other places in Gannan Prefecture in recent years.
Snow leopards are scarce in survival, and as apex predators of highland ecosystems, they are known as the "barometer" of the health of high-altitude ecosystems. When grass is abundant, the variety of herbivores also increases, and the number of snow leopards that feed on herbivores also increases.
The grassland subsidy policy has improved the grassland ecology and raised the awareness of farmers and herdsmen to protect the grassland. Cadres of Yaliji Township, Xiahe County, said that if many herdsmen find that there is a "black soil beach" in the pasture and there are bare places, they will take the initiative to go to the township to replant the grass seeds.
Less grazing, more housefeeding.
The sun has deflected the hills, dyeing the grasslands a more intense golden hue, gilding the golden silhouettes of yaks and Tibetan sheep, and painting a warm sheen to the faces of herdsmen Daoerji.
Knife Erji took out his mobile phone to check the time, it was almost 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and he drove the sheep on the way home. said that he was going home, but in fact he was going back to the "winter nest". This is a simple dwelling in the winter pastures, where herders live all winter to graze their cattle and sheep. The "winter nest" of the Daoerji family is a small cement bungalow with simple daily necessities.
When Daoerji drove the cattle and sheep to the door, his wife Dori was preparing dinner, and her hands were still stained with flour after wrapping the buns, so she quickly came out of the "winter nest" and drove the sheep into the pen with her husband.
For herders and cattle and sheep, the winter pastures have changed a lot in recent years. Herdsmen no longer get up early in the morning to graze sheep, but drive the cattle and sheep to the pasture at 11 a.m., and then drive the cattle and sheep back before 5 p.m., grazing only 6 hours a day, and the amount of labor is reduced a lot. Cattle and sheep no longer only rely on grazing for food, and there is a "meal" after returning to the circle at night, so that they can eat enough every day.
This kind of semi-house feeding production method has reduced the burden on the grassland, and also allowed the pastoral breeding industry to get rid of the dilemma of "full in summer, fat in autumn, thin in winter, and dead in spring". At present, the scale of rotational grazing, summer and autumn grazing, and winter and spring supplemental feeding in Xiahe County has reached 100%, and the scale of winter and spring housing and semi-housing breeding has reached more than 85%, and the proportion of housing and semi-housing feeding throughout the year has gradually increased.
In addition to the reduction in grazing time, the number of cattle and sheep on the pasture has also decreased significantly. Under the management model of grass and livestock balance, many herders have raised half or more cattle and sheep than before. The family has more than 700 acres of pasture and currently raises more than 120 sheep, up from 300 10 years ago.
The number of cattle and sheep grazing on the grasslands has decreased, but the number of cattle and sheep in large-scale farms has increased. Xiahe County has made a breakthrough in the standardized large-scale breeding of 10,000 yaks and 10,000 Tibetan sheep, and continues to promote the breeding, purification and rejuvenation of Gannan yak and Ganjia Tibetan sheep, and develop moderate-scale breeding. At present, there are 43 large-scale farms and cooperatives driven by forage planting in Xiahe County.
The transformation of herdsmen's production mode has also promoted the improvement of disaster prevention and mitigation capacity in pastoral areas. In the past, if the snow was too thick in winter, it was difficult for livestock to feed and a large amount of forage had to be fed, but the snow cover would interrupt the transportation roads, resulting in a large forage shortage. In the case of severe snowstorms, it will also crush the herdsmen's simple livestock sheds and grass storage sheds, causing cattle and sheep to freeze to death and starve to death.
In recent years, pastoral areas have made good use of the special funds for disaster prevention and mitigation, done a good job in the production, storage and transportation of forage, and coped with the lack of forage in disaster situations. In Xiahe County, the mechanical forage production and processing can be seen in the wide forage drying field, storage warehouse, forage storage capacity of more than 10,000 tons, in the event of a disaster, this forage storage and transportation center can immediately transport forage to the surrounding pastures, to achieve disaster resistance and livestock protection. Herders have also raised their awareness of disaster prevention and mitigation, and will use idle land to plant grass in advance, and will also purchase forage at the beginning of winter to cope with the shortage of forage in winter. Sturdy sheds have also been built on the winter pastures, and the number of cattle and sheep freezing to death in winter has been greatly reduced.
Income has increased and life has improved.
There are fewer cattle and sheep, but the herders' income cannot be less. Reducing livestock without reducing income is one of the main goals of the grassland subsidy policy.
My family has 980 acres of grassland, of which more than 90 acres are forbidden to grazing, more than 800 acres are balanced between grass and livestock, and this year's supplementary award funds have more than 5,000 yuan, all of which have been sent to the herdsmen of Ana Five Village, Yaliji Township, Xiahe County, to let Tashi say.
From a national point of view, grassland subsidy funds have become an important income for herders**. Qi Xiao introduced that the annual per capita policy income of farmers and herdsmen is nearly 700 yuan, and the average household income is nearly 1,500 yuan, and some poor counties in Qinghai and other provinces and regions account for more than 60% of the total income of farmers and herdsmen. Some provinces and autonomous regions are also combining rural revitalization and other policies to benefit the people, and continue to improve the subsidy standards. For example, Sichuan Province has raised the subsidy standard for the ban on grazing, with an average of about 900 yuan of funds distributed to households, which has increased the policy income of farmers and herdsmen in pastoral areas.
In order to ensure that the income does not fall, it is not enough to rely on the supplementary funds, and it is very important to improve the breeding efficiency of farmers and herdsmen.
In Xiahe County, many herders say that although the number of cattle and sheep raised has decreased, the quality has improved. "In the past, there were more cattle and sheep, but there was not enough grass, the cattle and sheep were very thin, and they were easy to get sick and die, and they couldn't sell at a good price. Sanji Dongzhibu said.
The efficiency of cattle and sheep slaughter has also been improved. In the past, the herdsmen were reluctant to kill and sell, and they lacked the awareness of slaughter, and they were reluctant to sell cattle and sheep for many years. Nowadays, we will guide herdsmen to eliminate the "old, weak, sick, miscellaneous, and servitude" livestock, optimize and adjust the structure of the herd, speed up the turnover of slaughter, and increase income while reducing livestock. Herdsmen in Xiahe County can get a reward of 400 yuan for breeding yaks within 2 years and 300 yuan for slaughtering within 3 years.
Farmers' incomes** are also more diversified. Walking into the Xiahe Damai Township Huerkajia Cattle and Sheep Breeding Farmers Professional Cooperative, I saw that yak beef jerky was drying at the door, and the person in charge of the cooperative, Jihe Dengbu, warmly invited the visitors to come into the house to taste beef jerky.
These jerky are processed from yaks raised by cooperatives, and are mainly sold to Lhasa and other places, and can be sold for about 180 yuan per catty. Jihe Dengbu told reporters that the cooperative is owned by 57 herdsmen, and each herdsman received 5,000 yuan in dividends last year.
Driven by the grassland subsidy and related supporting policies, the operating income of farmers and herdsmen has steadily increased and developed.
The enthusiasm of the secondary and tertiary industries has been markedly enhanced. Some provinces and autonomous regions are also vigorously developing follow-up industries, focusing on strengthening the construction of forage bases, sheds, forage processing equipment and other infrastructure construction and scientific and technological support, and actively guiding farmers and herdsmen to focus on the purchase of forage and forage funds, expanding the number of female animals, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of grassland animal husbandry.