Multi-household grassland management pattern promotes ecological efficiency of livestock production

Grassland degradation has become a global environmental concern. Livestock grazing under inappropriate grassland management and climate change contribute to this. Mitigating grassland degradation through revising the management pattern is needed to improve livestock production sustainability. The current study explores if a multi-household management pattern (M-pattern) is a better approach than single-household pattern (S-pattern) from the perspective of ecological efficiency (EE). EE reflects the ability of a household to gain economic output with less inputs and undesirable environmental conditions. We divided the sample households into multi-group (M group), single-renting group (S-R group) and single-no-renting group (S-NR group). The M group households graze livestock on their merged contracted grasslands; the S-R group households graze on contracted grasslands individually; and the S-NR group households graze on contracted and rented grasslands individually. A slack-based model was used to estimate the EE of 413 herders surveyed from three grassland types of two major areas in Inner Mongolia. The EE of the M group was 0.38, significantly higher than that of the S-R group (0.31) and the S-NR group (0.24). The higher EE of the M group was due to better environmental, economic, and input performances when compared with the S-R group and due to better environmental performance and input performances when compared with the S-NR group. The findings indicate that the M-pattern is a better fit for grassland management from the perspective of EE. This suggests that under the private grassland tenure arrangement, the M-pattern should be promoted to reduce grassland degradation and improve economic sustainability.