Desert Development: How Does It Relate to Anti Desertification Measures? - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 417

Fig. 20.5 A schematic
diagram representing the
change in land use systems in
the arid regions of northwest
China. Mixed farming in this
context refers to areas in
which the Han system of
oasis development co-exists
with a less intensive
agro-pastoral system

In the past

Traditional pastoral
system

Crop

I. -reliance on nature

II. -ruminant livestock and

horses

Farming

system

III. - low inputs

IV. - low outputs

Mixed farming
system

From 1950s onwards

Traditional

Farming system

Mixed

pastoral

farming

I. dependent on
irrigation & system

system

-pigs as main
livestock

II-high inputs

I.

-high outputs

II.

retention capacity - all of which led to severe land degradation and, in the semi-arid
conditions, to desertification.
In many areas of north and west China there has been a progressive program of
supplanting the traditional land use as practiced by the ethnic pastoralist minorities,
with the system of farming developed in more humid regions (Fig. 20.5 ). The latter
relies on two elements: irrigated cropping and non-ruminant livestock (mainly pigs).
It also depends on external inputs (water, fertilizer, energy, pesticides)
In the post-revolutionary race for development vast swathes of forest were
felled for lumber and large areas of dryland were plowed (even though there was