Journal of Rangeland

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Currently the use of animal husbandry in Iran is dependent on rangeland forage which makes it the main land use practice on those areas. Ignorance of relationship between the rangeland’s capacity and economic life of the users, puts the rangelands in danger due to the pressure on their resources. That’s why the vastness of rangeland and its stocking rate should be known whereby calculation of required land to fulfilled the need of the household could be done for different climatic zones. For this purpose, 160 rangelands with a total area of 181216 hectares and different management conditions (with and without the grazing licence, with and without range management plan) were chosen in five climatic regions. Based on available resources and guidelines, the short-term stocking rate was calculated. In the next step, On the basis of given answers to questionnaires, animal and the net annual income of the user were calculated. Information was analyzed to determine the size of a herd or the number of animal units that could financially meet the needs of nomadic or rural households was calculated. Consequently, the size of the range required by the exploiters, in different climatic zones were estimated. The results showed that the herd maintenance cost and needed income varies  in different climates due to rangeland’s quantity and quality of forage. The minimum flock size for a five-person household; in humid climate consist of 152 animal units; in the semi-humid region 156 units; in the Mediterranean climate 133 units; in the semi-arid climate 214 units; and in the dry climate were 220 units. At the same time, the minimum size of the rangeland for four months in a humid climate was calculated as 137 hectares, in the semi-humid region as 251 hectares, in the Mediterranean climate as 226 hectares, in the semi-arid climate as 406 hectares and in dry climates by 485 hectares. Results shows that under existing situation (Year of study 2015), the size of the rangelands allocated to the most rangeland projects are lower than the optimal economic level. Therefore, the rangeland office in the province should plan for economically viable rangeland plans which means large-scale ranching schemes with the emphasis on economic herd size. In addition, technology and use of renewable energies may reduce the cost of living. And a ten years strategy should be set in a way that animal husbandry gets more profitable.

Keywords: Range Management Projects, Optimal size of utilization units, Herd (flock) size, West Azerbaijan.

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