中国における草原牧区の経済改革と草原退化・砂漠化問題 : 「家庭経営請負制」は全ての草原地域に最適な経営制度なのか

Abstract

Today, there are three kinds of environmental problems brought by agricultural acts 111 China, and one of them is the degradation and desertification of grasslands distributed in northwestern inner provinces. To make clear the causes of this problem and its solution, this paper firstly review the economic reforms and the rapid development of stockbreeding in the steppe areas since 1980s; then analyze relationship between the degradation and desertification of grasslands and the existing agricultural policies of these areas, such as the household contract system and the government subsidy to steppe agriculture. From our analysis, it was founded that, the rapid development of stockbreeding was promoted by introduce of the household contract system and price rise of livestock products. However, because the right of grassland utilization in many steppe areas was not finally distributed to individual nomadic farmer under the early contract system until middle of 1990s, a typical "tragedy of the commons" was brought in. To avoid the problem of "tragedy of the commons", Chinese government has started to carry out some programs aimed at distributing the right of grassland utilization to individual nomadic farmer from 1994. However, it has not succeeded and the budget scale subsiding to grassland areas is very small yet. To stop degradation and desertification of grasslands growing worse, not only government input for protection of grasslands and the steppe must be expanded, but also the household contract system should be reexamined: is it a best institutional arrange for all of the steppe areas, especially for those areas where livestock output is very low but sensitive and fragile in environment?