Ecological animal husbandry in Tuchengzi Town

In order to speed up the pace of ecological construction and promote the healthy development of animal husbandry across the banner, Tuchengzi Town has implemented mountain closures, grazing bans, and housing breeding in the entire town since November 1, 2002, thus making The ecological construction of Hexigten Banner, the source of sandstorms in Beijing and Tianjin, has entered a new stage.

Tuchengzi Town is an advanced and typical town in ecological construction in Keshiketeng Banner. Since 1994, the town has begun large-scale mountain closure for afforestation. By the end of 2000, the area had closed 250,000 acres for afforestation. However, the party and government leaders of the town still deeply feel that the speed of human damage to the ecology is far slower than the speed of ecological governance. Overall, the town's water and soil erosion is still serious. The party and government leaders of the town have a deep understanding that ecological construction is the key to achieving comprehensive economic and social progress in the town. Therefore, they made up their mind to implement a grazing ban in the town.

In order to carry out the grazing ban smoothly, Tuchengzi Town first carried out a high-profile publicity campaign. Propaganda placards announcing the mountain closure and grazing ban were set up in each village, and a publicity vehicle was dispatched to each natural camp twice to conduct publicity, calling on the masses to diversify pasture and engage in livestock breeding. They also established a special leadership organization to close the mountains and ban grazing, set up full-time forest rangers in towns and villages, and formulated punitive measures for closing the mountains and banning grazing.

While closing the mountains and banning grazing, Tuchengzi Town also strengthened guidance on shelter feeding. Tuchengzi Town has 30,000 acres of irrigated land. Corn is the main crop here and the forage resources are very rich. The town’s annual crop straw output reaches a minimum of 1.5 million kilograms, and the grain output reaches 1.2 million kilograms. There are nearly 20,000 acres of sloping farmland can be returned to grassland. In addition, there are some four wastelands in Tuchengzi Town that are suitable for planting trees and grass. These advantageous conditions provide sufficient sources of forage for livestock breeding. Tuchengzi Town established 10 demonstration households for raising sheep in the Baiyinheshuo village group of Wutaishan Village. These 10 demonstration households invested a total of 175,000 yuan to build 620 square meters of plastic greenhouses, 33 storage cellars, and 396 cubic meters, each household raises 50 basic ewes on average, and they also use microbial preparations for straw conversion. The average annual net income of these 10 demonstration households can reach 7,500 yuan by fattening hybrid sheep in houses. Driven by profits, it will drive the development of the sheep industry in the town and accelerate the transformation of traditional animal husbandry into modern animal husbandry.

Due to adequate preparation and publicity, the mountain closure and grazing ban in Tuchengzi Town went smoothly. Seven villages in the town have implemented a complete grazing ban. The remaining three villages have no irrigated land due to lack of water. In view of the actual situation such as the lack of grass planting, measures were taken to prohibit large livestock from going up the mountain and small livestock from entering the original closed breeding area. On the basis of guiding the masses to vigorously plant grass, a complete grazing ban was implemented on November 1, 2002. The total land area of ??Tuchengzi Town is 406 square kilometers, of which the area closed to mountains and grazing has reached 337 square kilometers.