Abstract:

The scale of herdsmen’s livestock farming activities plays a crucial role in determining equilibria in grassland ecosystems. It is therefore important to analyze the factors affecting the scale of livestock production activities， and thus guide pastoralists to adopt rational grazing practices， restore degraded grassland， and ensure the ecological safety of rangeland in China. Using data from a pastoral households survey in Qinghai Province， this study employs principal component analysis to identify the contributions of various factors to livestock production decisions. In addition， quantile regression was used to analyze the factors of influence and the characteristics of livestock production of different scales， exploring the different factors affecting livestock breeding practices of individual of herdsmen. The results indicated that： natural factors are the most dominant factors influencing livestock production， followed by policy factors， education factors， and non-grazing factors in that order； livestock production practice at medium and lower scale is significantly affected by the proportion of family labor and non-pastoral employment income； livestock production practice at medium and higher scale is affected by the per capita available grassland area and the grassland compensation policy significantly and a grazing ban policy can achieve the goal of protecting grassland ecology better than the forage-livestock balance policies. We make the following suggestions for improvement of grassland status： increasing non-pastoral employment opportunities in pastoral areas， actively guiding herdsmen with smaller operations to participate in non-pastoral employment； increasing the range of forage-livestock balance zones in tundra alpine grassland， and an appropriate raise in the compensation standard for medium and larger-scale herders. This study found that the factors influencing livestock production practices in tundra alpine grasslands differ depending on the scale of operations of herdsmen. This insight provides a scientific basis for the government to differentiate management of herders with different enterprise sizes.

Key words: tundra and alpine grassland, farming factors, principal component analysis, Qinghai