Sustainable and profitable grazing management in a highly variable environment‐evidence and insights from a long term grazing trial in northern Australia
Rainfall variability is a major challenge to sustainable management in semi‐arid rangelands.We present empirical evidence from a large, long‐term grazing trial in northern Australia on the relative performance of constant heavy stocking, moderate stocking at long‐term carrying capacity and variable stocking in coping with climate variability over a range of rainfall years.Moderate stocking gave good economic returns, maintained pasture condition and minimised soil loss and runoff.Heavy stocking was neither sustainable nor profitable in the long term.Variable stocking generally performed well but suffered economic loss and some decline in pasture condition in the transition from good to poor years.Importantly, our results show that sustainable and profitable management are compatible in semi‐arid rangelands.
stocking rate rainfall variability economics pasture condition soil health runoff
Peter O Reagain John Bushell
Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries,POBox 976,Charters Towers,Q 4820,Australia
国际会议
呼和浩特
英文
2008-06-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）