Description

Abstract: A series of droughts and winter disasters in Mongolia resulted in discussions between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Global Livestock CRSP to transfer the GL-CRSP Livestock Early Warning System (LEWS) technology to Mongolia as risk mitigation for these extreme events. LEWS is a forage monitoring system that provides near-real time spatial and temporal assessment of current and forecasted forage conditions, along with an information and communication infrastructure that delivers the information for decision making to herders and other stakeholders. In 2004, the Gobi Forage project was initiated in the Gobi region of Mongolia using the blueprint from the GL-CRSP LEWS implementation, which was initially developed for the east African rangelands. Overall, the transfer of the General technology was successful. However, as would be expected with implementation in a new county and landscape, some protocols, procedures, and data streams had to be modified to accommodate an operational LEWS. For forage quantity monitoring, the infrastructure and protocols developed for East Africa allowed the Gobi team to have a fully operational system within two years; almost two years less than the implementation in East Africa. The General protocols for implementing forage quality monitoring have also been successful, and have resulted in the first in-country use of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) for livestock in Mongolia. In conclusion, the Gobi Forage program provides an example of successful GL-CRSP technology transfer that can be used as a model for other pastoral regions.