University of Saskatchewan experts helping ‘herders’ in Mongolia

About 70 per cent of Mongolia’s pastures are over-grazed, as the country has added tens of millions of sheep, goats and cattle over the last two decades.

“(About) 20 years ago, it was a really beautiful country. But now there’s no grasses. There’s lots of bare ground,” said Bill Biligetu, a University of Saskatchewan forage crop breeder.

Biligetu was part of a delegation from the U of S, including cattle expert Bart Lardner, who spent two weeks in Mongolia this summer.

The Canadian government and the University of Saskatchewan are part of a $10 million project led by Alinea International, a development agency with offices in Calgary, trying to help Mongolian farmers modernize their practices.

The grasslands of Mongolia are severely over-grazed because the population of livestock exploded in last two decades. Around 2010, the country had 25 million sheep, goats, cattle and horses, Biligetu said.

By 2022, that number had climbed to 70 million.

“Livestock and the forage-grassland agriculture, (that’s) their main thing,” said Biligetu. “(But) everywhere there is over-grazing. That’s really a major problem, right now.”

The number of livestock in Mongolia nearly tripled for multiple reasons. The country had several years with wetter-than-average weather and robust growth on rangelands, allowing farmers to expand their herds.