Nutrition-Sensitive Livestock Farming in Grassland Social–Ecological Systems: Practical Pathways, Structural Dilemmas, and an Ecology–Nutrition Synergy Framework from Inner Mongolia, China

Hidden hunger and grassland degradation represent interconnected governance challenges in northern China’s pastoral areas. Nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) has been conceptualised largely around crop-based systems, with limited attention to grassland grazing systems, where nutritional value is shaped by ecology, feeding practices, seasonality, local knowledge, and market institutions. Drawing on five rounds of fieldwork (2019–2025) across meadow, typical, and desert steppes in Inner Mongolia, this study employs a multi-case comparative design involving 92 semi-structured interviews, 58 policy documents, and long-term observations. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we develop an ecology–nutrition synergy framework to explain local practices and institutional constraints in nutrition-sensitive livestock farming. Three pathways are identified: grass–livestock nutritional balancing, scientific valorisation of native forage, and market experimentation linking ecological origin to nutritional quality. These pathways operate through three mechanisms: ecological mediation of nutritional quality, endogenous quality fluctuation as an inherent feature, and scientific codification of traditional pastoral knowledge. Four structural dilemmas constrain scaling: incompatibility between natural quality fluctuation and industrial standardisation; absence of institutional trust in nutritional premiums; short-term trade-offs between stocking control and nutritional enhancement; and fragmented cross-sectoral governance. The study extends NSA to grassland systems and offers a framework for integrating ecological protection, livestock quality, and nutrition-oriented governance in arid and semi-arid rangelands. Three theoretical contributions are advanced: (i) extending NSA’s conceptual boundary from cropping systems to natural grassland pastoral systems; (ii) embedding a nutrition-output dimension within Ostrom’s SES framework, thereby creating a triple-nested ecology–nutrition synergy framework; and (iii) specifying three grazing-system-specific mechanisms that distinguish grassland livestock systems from both crop-based and confined animal production systems.