17 of Mongolia’s 21 provinces have submitted working results about wintering preparations to the division of Livestock at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Ulaanbaatar and Dornogovi provinces have yet to submit their work, according to P. Ganhuyag, Head of the Livestock division at the Ministry, who said that winter preparations in the countryside could be as high as 97 percent complete.

In response to questions asked about works being completed for wintering in 12 provinces like Bayankhongor, Dungovi, Govi-Sumber, Sukhbaatar, Khentii and Tov, Ganhuyag said that the summer was not very good, drought was a problem and winter times are likely to be harsh.

Ganhuyag said that province and soum governors were assigned to prepare 982.8 thousand tonnes of natural hay and 44.4 thousand tonnes of manually prepared nourishment in the country according to the Government’s 175th decree. 98.9 percent or 971.5 thousand tones of hay and 46,500 tonnes of the manually prepared nourishment had already been collected by the time checks were done during the second week of October.

550 small tractors and supplemental equipment for haymaking and crop areas were issued and sold with 50 percent lower prices to enterprises and citizens in efforts to improve the supply of haymaking and nourishment preparation, according the ministerial records.

Ganhuyag also said that MNT 180 million was resolved for establishing new wells in 14 soums according to requests made from the above mentioned provinces where the winter is likely to be harsh and actions to coordinate preparation works such as moving livestock to other soums where there are more favorable grazing conditions, migrating and preparing additional nourishments are being done cooperatively with related provinces.

However P. Zorigtbaatar, Governor Bayanhongor province told MonInfo, “Over 800,000 livestock need to survive the coming winter in our province, so over 6 thousand tonnes of hay and 620 tonnes of manually prepared nourishment were prepared.”

“That means that totally prepared hay is only enough for one day of nourishment in case a harsh winter occurs. In other words hay and nourishment can only be for newly born baby animals and weak and sick animals. We have state source funds in the center of our Province including Zag and Bayangobi soums. Yet, there is no state source of funding for Bayantsagaan, Shinejinst, Bumbugur and Buutsagaan soums in case these areas need to endure a harsh winter. For watering MNT 130 million was spent for 28 wells’ maintenance and 9 wells were newly established,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Ts. Shinekhuu, a herdsman of Khanhongor soum of Umnugobi province said, “We have about 700 animals and 5 tones of hay was prepared. The wintering preparation work is good. We haven’t encountered any difficulties for in our preparation work at the moment.”

Sh. Turbat, Governor of Dundgovi province only said that they have prepared about 600 tonnes of grass and over 400 tonnes of nourishment had been prepared for its 1.9 million heads of livestock in the province.

When officials of the Livestock division at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture were asked about whether the above amount of grass and nourishment planned to be prepared in the country is enough for animals when if a, “zud,” or extreme winter occurs, officials responded that announcements would be made at a later time.

Image Copyright Luke Distelhorst