Labour Organization and Hay–Feed Relations in Intensive, Semi-Intensive, and Pastoral Livestock Systems
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Abstract
This article compares pastoral and intensified livestock systems in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China, by examining how labour organization, feed dependence, and market relations reconfigure livelihood vulnerability and autonomy. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2025, including household interviews and participant observation, the study analyzes three contrasting production systems: intensive pen-feeding cattle farms in Tongliao, semi-intensive fenced-pasture households in eastern Inner Mongolia, and mobile pastoral herding in western Mongolia. The analysis shows that pastoral and intensified livestock systems are structured by fundamentally different forms of dependence. Pastoral livestock production remains directly exposed to climatic variability and pasture conditions; livestock survival depends on herders’ continuous labour, seasonal mobility, and ecological knowledge. Yet despite its sensitivity to nature, pastoralism retains a relatively high degree of socio-economic autonomy, as households rely primarily on pasture and labour rather than on external inputs. Intensified livestock production, by contrast, reduces direct exposure to pasture variability through enclosure and feed-based systems, but becomes deeply dependent on state policy, feed prices, and integrated supply chains. As livestock numbers decline and production concentrates within feed- and capital-intensive clusters, herders are increasingly embedded in networks of suppliers, subsidies, regulation, and markets. By comparing Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, the article argues that livestock intensification does not eliminate risk but relocates it—from nature to institutions, from labour to markets, and from household autonomy to policy and price volatility. The findings challenge linear narratives of livestock “modernization” and demonstrate that pastoralism and intensification represent distinct socio-ecological regimes rather than stages along a single developmental path.
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