EXTREME DROUGHT HITS THIRD OF MONGOLIAN TERRITORY
Approximately 34 percent of the country has been hit with severe drought, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry. In addition, the ministry reported that 43 percent of the country is experiencing a moderate drought, while only 23 percent of land has been designated as having no drought (normal status).
Despite efforts to alleviate dryness, including weather modification operations to produce rain, the drought is expected to intensify, reports the Information and Research Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment. The institute also warned that the drought in the agricultural province of Selenge and in the northern part of Sukhbaatar Province has reached dangerous levels. The large number of wildfires spreading across the country has been in part caused by people, but officials say the drought is making the situation even worse.
The National Emergency Management Agency has been actively fighting wildfires and has recently reported that the majority of wildfires have been put out.
In order to maintain the security of livestock for the coming winter, the ministry has planned to prepare 30,800 tons of fodder and 11,700 tons of forage. Herders are preparing 1.2 million tons of feed, 36,000 tons of straw, and 141,900 tons of salt lick. However, due to lack of land to harvest hay as a result of drought, the ministry has observed a surge in the price of animal feed. In response, Cabinet recently temporarily banned the export of all feed and forage.
In 2015, the completion of forage preparation nationwide was at 82 percent, while that number dropped to 60 percent in 2016. Preliminary statistics show that around 66 million livestock will need feed for winter.