"The sky is bright and the wild is vast. The wind blows the grass and the grass is low to see the cattle and sheep." The widely praised phrase in the folk song "Chile Song" has become people's romantic imagination of the grasslands of Inner Mongolia.
In reality, on the grasslands of central and western Inner Mongolia this summer, the sky is not always blue, and the hot and strong wind whistled past, rolling up a puff of dust.
The cows and sheep searched for everything they could eat on the bare earth.
Since the beginning of spring, the central and western parts of Inner Mongolia have been experiencing high temperatures, strong winds and little rain for days, and the drought has lasted almost half of the summer.
The herdsmen and livestock on the Xilin Gol grassland were witnesses to this disaster.
The grassland in the beginning of autumn is not much different from that in spring, and the bare land glows a barren yellow.
The herdsman Jiyabatu still remembers that on July 28, in a high temperature of more than 30 degrees Celsius, there were dark clouds, lightning and thunder, and everything was announcing that a downpour was coming, but as a result, the rain did not arrive, and the drought remained .
Although by September, the weather will turn cooler and the growing season of the grasslands will end, but in the last few days, they still long for Changshengtian (the highest deity in Mongolian belief) to hear the call and play a few games. Heavy rain, save the grassland and its creatures.
wait for rain
It had not rained for three months, and Alatantauligul clearly remembered that the last rain was a few days after the beginning of summer in early May, but it only wet the ground and the grass did not grow.
In a blink of an eye, the beginning of autumn has passed, and it is about to go out.
Several times, the sky at his house was covered with dark clouds, gloomy, and it was about to rain, but the clouds ran away after a while, and the rain did not fall.
In Alatantauligul's memory, the grasslands in August have never been so dry.
In the photo album of his mobile phone, there are pictures of pastures in the past few years. The rain was good the year before, and the grass was long enough to cover the ankles. A few calves were full and lay leisurely in the grass to take a nap.
Although there was little rain last year, in July there was a lifesaving rain, green grass emerged, and the grassland turned green.
But today's grasslands are all yellow, and if you lift your foot and step on it hard, you can sway a burst of sand and dust.
The animals were released early in the morning, and they were far apart, walking and stopping, looking for everything they could eat.
Artemisia annua is one of the few plants that exists in large areas. The thin leaves have been swept away by the sheep, leaving only the thick and hard branches that cannot be chewed.
The livestock didn't even let go of the grass roots. They followed the dwarf weeds, and laboriously pulled out the roots, rolled them into their mouths, and swallowed them in their stomachs.
When it was dark and rushed back to the circle, they didn't eat much.
Alatan Taoliguer is a herdsman in Taoligacha Village, Erlianhot City, Xilin Gol League. His home is about 60 kilometers away from the city.
The grassland here belongs to the desert steppe, which is a kingdom of drought-tolerant plants such as xerophyte, wormwood, and sand onion.
In the rainy summer, the sturdy scallions bloom in clusters of purple-red flowers, and the desert shows the grace of the grassland.
In the face of severe drought, the Meteorological Bureau of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has produced and released 22 drought assessment products and 33 soil moisture products, and carried out nearly 1,000 artificial rainfall enhancement operations, affecting an area of 399,000 square kilometers and increasing precipitation by 1.31 billion tons.
In the comprehensive drought assessment that has been released continuously, since mid-to-late June, the villages of Alatantauligul have been within the area of extreme drought and severe drought for many times.
Xilin Gol League launched the city's level III emergency response to drought on June 17.
In the national standard of "Meteorological Drought Grades", meteorological drought is divided into five grades: no drought, mild drought, moderate drought, severe drought, and extreme drought. Among them, extreme drought means that the soil is severely deficient in moisture for a long time, and the surface plants dry up and die; It has a serious impact on crops and the ecological environment, industrial production, and drinking water for humans and animals.
The rain did not come, and extreme weather raged frequently.
The heat wave comes with summer. As soon as the sun comes out, the grassland is like a baking pan. "It's so hot, as soon as you go out, you will faint, and people will die." Alatan Taurigur said.
Not only people, but animals on the grasslands can't stand it either.
On the hottest afternoons, the coolest wells outside become summer resorts, full of bugs.
The water is also home to heat-hungry cattle, with the most heat-labile cattle experiencing heat stress, gasping for breath, lying on the ground, and ignoring the dry forage.
Sandstorms are also frequent visitors, and strong winds blowing over dry sand can roll up yellow sand in the sky.
The smell is pungent, and you can taste dry sand when you open your mouth.
According to Zhang Cunhou, chief meteorological service expert of the Inner Mongolia Meteorological Bureau, a large-scale drought occurred in the central and western parts of Inner Mongolia this year, and the degree and scope of the drought were higher than the same period in previous years.
The drought began to appear in early and mid-May, and the degree of drought was relatively mild. In late May, the area of drought expanded rapidly, and most areas were dominated by mild drought.
The area and extent of drought reached the largest on June 19, at 531,300 square kilometers, mainly in extreme drought, mainly in the northwest and west of Xilingol League. Among them, more than 60% of the pastoral areas were dry.
Regarding the reasons for the drought in the past few months, Zhang Cunhou explained: "Before the freezing last year, the bottom moisture in the central and western regions was relatively poor. Although the soil thawing and the melting of ice and snow in the beginning of spring have supplemented the soil moisture to a certain extent, for the situation since the beginning of spring, , a drop in the bucket."
Meteorological observations show that since the beginning of spring, the precipitation in the central and western regions has been more than 50% lower than that of normal years, and the number of consecutive days without rainfall in some areas has lasted for more than 100 days. Severe drought occurred in some areas, and drought occurred in many places.
The herdsmen on the grassland basically follow the traditional way of grazing. Unlike the modern breeding industry, natural pasture is the main food of the livestock, which means that the herdsmen depend on the sky for food.
"The family has a lot of wealth, and the hairy ones are not counted." In the event of a drought, the herdsmen and livestock will suffer.
Summer is the most important season. In a year with abundant rain, it starts to rain in June, and the pasture turns green. The livestock can grow fat after eating two or three months of grass.
Cattle are the most important livestock in Alatantauligul, with more than 60 heads, along with several horses and dozens of sheep.
Cows are not heat-resistant. When the weather is hot in May, the cattle cannot eat forage and starve to death or die of illness.
Six large cattle and three calves have died on his ranch in the past few months.
livelihood
Drought occurs from time to time in the grasslands, and it seems to be more frequent in the past ten years. The herdsmen who depend on the sky for food have summed up a set of coping methods.
"Walking pastures" is one of them. Rotational grazing in winter and summer pastures is a routine way of walking pastures, allowing idle pastures to recuperate.
When encountering severe drought in summer, herdsmen will also go to the farm to let their livestock have grass to eat.
In mid-July, Alatantauligul decided to leave before it rained.
He found the pasture of an acquaintance in Siziwangqi, more than 100 kilometers away, where the rain was not bad and the grass was green.
The price of going to the market is not cheap. A big cow will pay 300 yuan a month, and a big cow plus a calf will be 400 yuan.
Last time he pulled more than 50 cows, and recently he is going to find a pasture for the remaining dozen or so cows, and he will pull all the animals back in September.
In the past, we had to drive a Lele cart pulled by a large animal, carrying yurts, daily necessities, and odds and ends. The shepherd sat sideways in front of the cart, his legs slumped, driving the animals, and two large wooden reels turned leisurely. , Ding Ding Dangdang walked for several days to complete a migration of "living by water and grass".
Now, it only takes a few tin wagons to do it all, saving time and effort and money.
The freight for a large truck is 20 yuan per kilometer. The cheaper 6-meter-eight mini-truck that Alatan Taoligur chooses is 10 yuan per kilometer. This is the price after the price increase. Under normal circumstances, the freight for a small truck is 6 yuan per kilometer.
Under the large-scale drought, the herdsmen traveled a lot, and the freight rate also increased.
In the same village, Jiyabatu's family has more livestock than Alatan Taurigur's family, with more than 150 cattle, horses and camels, and more than 500 sheep.
They couldn't hold it any longer by July, so Jiyabatu drove some sheep to eat grass for 13 days on undeveloped land on the edge of the urban area of Erlianhot, which is more than 50 kilometers away from home. Pulling water and drinking sheep, living in a car, and having to order takeaways from the city for meals, but the relatively higher travel costs, they feel it is worth it.
More than 100 households in Taoli Gacha Village basically go to the farm, and some herdsmen even put their livestock on the pasture 700 to 800 kilometers away to the east.
Whether it is to go to the farm or buy fodder, money is needed. Some herdsmen lack the funds to circulate and can only sell some livestock in advance.
This is a last resort for herdsmen. The market has been bad recently, and the price of livestock has not gone up. Now they will lose a lot of money when they are slaughtered.
The family of Alatantauligul has five members, and the expenses are not small.
The eldest daughter is studying in a boarding elementary school in the city, and her father takes her home on the weekends. This year, the oil price is expensive.
The pastoral areas lack living materials other than meat, and Alatantauligul has to go to the city or town to buy rice, flour, grain, and rapeseed.
Affected by the recent local epidemic, the supermarket he often went to was closed, and he could only go to another supermarket that was much more expensive to buy.
"Sometimes 1,000 yuan a week is not enough to spend." The Mongolian man carefully compared the prices of vegetables in various nearby supermarkets, counting his daily expenses.
Fortunately, Altan Taurigur can weld, and he usually does odd jobs, making some troughs and racks for the ranch by himself, to earn some living expenses.
But in recent months, the surrounding epidemic has been serious, and he has no way to go out to do odd jobs, and the things he makes cannot be sold due to transportation problems.
At the beginning of June, the Erenhot outbreak suddenly broke out. At that time, the youngest son was not born, and the family of 4 was isolated in 4 places.
Luckily for the Altan Taurigur family, he was home alone and could take care of the livestock.
Some herders were isolated in the city, their livestock left unattended, and some starved to death.
During the epidemic, it was difficult to move around, and people who bought livestock and sold fodder did not dare to enter the village.
People in the village have to drive for nucleic acid testing almost every day, going back and forth more than a dozen times, and families in difficulty cannot afford to refuel.
There are also warm moments in the midst of difficulties. The news of the disaster spread on the Internet, and the pastoral districts launched donation activities to the disaster area after hearing the news.
Mongolian youth Bailag is the initiator of a donation activity.
Since June, he has frequently seen videos on the Internet of severe drought in the grasslands taken by herdsmen.
Bailag is from Xilin Gol. He usually likes to play Douyin and make videos introducing national culture, and he has gained a lot of fans one after another.
This time he wants to use his online influence to help the disaster-stricken areas in his hometown.
He launched an online fundraiser.
In 4 days, Bailager raised a total of 43,700 yuan, and he plans to use the funds directly to buy fodder for herdsmen in the disaster-stricken areas.
In Cao Shi, he thought that the bosses would give some discounts in difficult times, but what surprised him was that Cao Shi had heard about the drought in the Midwest and raised prices accordingly. "Even the fodder is full of copper odor." Bayi Rag said.
After several turnovers, he found a local grass seller who was willing to sell at breakeven, and the freight was priced at 1,550 yuan per ton per ton. A truckload of grass forage totaled 28.04 tons, and the funds raised just ran out.
In the early morning of the next day, Bailager and his friends set out to follow the car to the donation site, Brain Stem Xili.
The farther they drove to the destination, the more desolate they could feel, and the companions felt like they had traveled from summer to autumn.
Bailag joked: "In a few years, this place is estimated to be another big desert."
Friends of the same trade said that if they brought their own cattle and sheep over, they would not be able to survive, because the cattle and sheep in their eastern regions were accustomed to eating curly grass.
Bailag also saw a lot of support vehicles on the road. At this time of crisis, the children of the grasslands were watching and helping each other.
When unloading the grass, the herdsmen are not willing to waste even a handful of grass that has fallen on the ground. "Who would have thought that one day the nomads will have an extravagant hope for grass." Bailager said.
However, he also understands that these pastures are only a drop in the bucket and cannot fundamentally solve the problem. Winter is the most difficult time for herdsmen.
winter
Every time he talked about winter, Altan Taurigur had to sigh first. If the price of cattle in autumn was still so low, he would not be able to deal with the animals.
If he kept them for the winter, he made a rough calculation and found that it would cost two or three hundred thousand yuan, which made him unable to bear the loan of a few hundred thousand yuan.
Giabatu's house is not far away. It was lucky. On the second day of August, it rained. It could not be said that it was heavy, but the grass also grew. If the animals can get fat in this month, he will prepare Sell a large portion to take the stress out of winter.
At present, affected by extensive precipitation, the drought in most parts of Inner Mongolia has been alleviated or relieved. The drought area accounts for 30% of the whole region, mainly mild drought, mainly distributed in pastoral areas; Significantly better than the same period in previous years.
Many pastoral areas near Alatantauligul's house were blessed by the rain in early August, and now, he is still looking forward to the next rain.
But he also understands that even if the rain falls now, it will be too late for this rain. There will be no hard grass on the grassland, only some weeds will grow. When the weather is cold, a strong wind will blow these weeds away. Walk.
Altan Taurigur is also full of worries about the future, "I'm afraid it won't rain next year. The grass roots are dead."
"Dry is the norm in the pastoral areas of Inner Mongolia. Most of the pastoral areas are located deep in the hinterland, where water vapor is difficult to reach, and the frequency of precipitation is relatively small and the amount of precipitation is small." Zhang Cunhou said, "The pastoral areas have relatively simple measures to combat drought and disasters, with almost no irrigation and groundwater replenishment. Very limited, natural precipitation has become the only source of soil moisture in most pastoral areas, and this year's central and western precipitation is unusually low."
Zhang Cunhou believes that the occurrence and development of drought in the pastoral areas of the central and western regions has become more serious in recent years.
Zhang Qian, an associate researcher at the Rural Environment and Society Research Center of the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also said that from the meteorological data for many years, Inner Mongolia has shown a clear trend of warm and dry climate in recent decades, which has an important impact on the livelihood of herdsmen.
It should be noted that the rain and heat may show the characteristics of different periods, and the coordinated disasters, that is, the simultaneous occurrence of drought and high temperature, snow disaster and low temperature, may be more frequent, which will inevitably bring greater impact on animal husbandry.
Regarding disaster response, Zhang Qian said that in daily life, it is necessary to strengthen exchanges and cooperation among various government business departments, scientific research units, and herdsmen.
From the perspective of the three core links of disaster relief, "pre-disaster preparation, emergency response during disaster, and post-disaster recovery", Zhang Qian believes that pre-disaster prevention must be done first. While giving full play to the professional advantages of the meteorological department, local people can be used to deal with Indigenous knowledge of climate change and extreme events.
It is also necessary to improve herdsmen's ability to cope with extreme weather, promote cooperation between herdsmen in different regions, and reduce the disaster-resistance cost of herdsmen in disasters.
In post-disaster recovery, pastoralists can be helped to restore production capacity as soon as possible by providing forage subsidies or animal product price subsidies.
July and August have always been the most pleasant days on the grasslands. The water and grass are lush, the cattle and sheep are fat, and the herdsmen put on wrestling clothes, mount on horseback, and use bows and arrows to celebrate Naadam and celebrate the harvest.
Now, the grassland in August is lonely. The herdsmen, as usual, let their animals out to eat and drink when the sun rises at 6:00 in the morning, and then rush back to the circle before the sun goes down. There is only a moment of leisure at night, brushing the phone and chatting. a few words.
The sheep in the pen lie down in the dark, chewing and savoring the food hastily swallowed during the day.
A few untimely bleats broke the silence, and the grassland soon fell into a cycle of silence.
At dawn, the shepherd stepped into the pen again in the morning light, and the lambs that were kept in captivity bleated warmly to welcome them and couldn't wait to return to their mother.
This is the voice that Jiyabatu thinks is the best, and it is full of vigor, vitality, and affection. It is the most pleasant gift from Tengger to the grassland.
Intern An Yueyang Source: China Youth Daily