Unequal Distributions: Land Pressure in the World’s Least Densely-Population Country by Katie Niemeyer

In 1992, the Mongolian People’s Republic officially became recognized as simply “Mongolia” after it adopted a democratic constitution, and, equally important, initiated a dramatic shift from 70 years of socialism to a market economy.  For the first time in over 2,200 years of statehood, Mongolia established the institution of private land by allowing for private property ownership by citizens with the exception of pastures and areas designated for public use.[i]  However, the significance of keeping about 82%[ii] of Mongolia’s land (an area that is nearly twice the size of Texas in total) free and open to the public while also trying to promote land privatization has caused significant conflict, particularly in peri-urban areas.  My research of peri-urban livestock production near the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, produced some interesting stories of this tension.  These stories will take us on a journey through two of the areas that I visited during my research: Bornuur County (soum) in Tov Province and Songinokhairkhan District (düüreg) within the municipality of Ulaanbaatar.

Study area in peri-urban Mongolia included Bornuur Soum, Bayanchandmani Soum, and Songinokhairkhan District within the capital city, Ulaanbaatar.

Bornuur Soum, Tov

The soum of Bornuur is well known for its agriculture – both crops and livestock.  In some areas, you are almost as likely to see a small planted field (by U.S. standards) as you are a yurt (ger) with a herd of sheep and goats.  This is relatively unique in Mongolia, as half of the 3 million people in the country reside in the capital city, and around one third of the population depends on extensive livestock husbandry for its livelihood.² But in an exciting trend for the development and diversification of Mongolia’s agricultural sector, cultivation of field crops on privately-owned land also gives rise to a new issue that Mongolia has not had to address before.  Local officials in Bornuur have stated that the most common complaint among their constituents involves free-roaming livestock choosing the highly nutritious diet of the neighbor’s crops over the degraded public rangeland full of noxious weeds.

According to a local official in Bornuur, “This is a problem not just in our bag, but our soum. By last year’s census, our total amount of animals was about 108,000 in this soum. Our soum’s total area is 114,000 ha. Our pasture weight is overgrazed 4 times than normal. There has been a rift of dispute cases between herders and crop farmers, as the enclosed fields of farmers get trespassed by herders’ animals. Then farmers will confiscate the herders’ animals. These kinds of cases are common.”

When asked how local officials try to solve these conflicts, she stated, “Our policy from the soum is that herders herd their animals better and that farmers fence their lands better. When there’s an inevitable dispute, we try to follow mediation guidelines.”  These mediation guidelines, she went on to explain, involve an appraisal committee that determines the amount of loss and necessary payment by the herder.  If he or she decides not to reimburse the farmer either with cash or livestock, then the case goes to court.

According to local officials, 40% of Bornuur’s population live as semi-nomadic herders, and 120,000 animals survive on 194,000 total hectares of land.  This leads to an overgrazing problem of 3-4 times the capacity of the public pastureland.  It’s not surprising that the livestock, that have little knowledge or concern for fences, end up in the fields of crop farmers.

Songinokhairkhan District, Ulaanbaatar

During socialist times in Mongolia, the 21^st Subdistrict (khoroo) of Songinokahirkhan was the largest agricultural unit providing milk to city.  This trend continued during privatization in the 1990s when Jargalant Village, one of the largest towns in the 21^st Khoroo, was established as the “agricultural development zone” for the city.[i]  

As of last December, 2,200 households owned over 16,900 head of livestock, most of which are raised on the public pasture.  The rangeland in this administrative area is also in trouble due to heavy livestock densities – and that was before a mistake within the different levels of government led to the shrinking of public lands pasture for herders and their livestock.

In the 2003, Mongolia shifted its focus from privatization of industry and commerce to the privatization of land for every Mongolian citizen.  A new law passed the year before allowed each Mongolian citizen to claim a plot of land of up to 0.07 hectares.  The government is still working on this process, distributing the land in a lottery-type fashion year-by-year.

However, as with any massive state-level transition, things do not always go as smoothly as hoped.  One example has hit Songinokhairkhan hard.  According to a local official in the 21^st Khoroo, “there has been an egregious mistake in land allocation.”  The Ulaanbaatar city council dedicated 1,400 hectares of land to private ownership in 21^st Khoroo, an administrative area that was supposed to be reserved strictly as an agricultural zone. She stated that now, 20,000 residents of the capital city are claiming their own slice of paradise by “fencing their lands with tires, iron bars, anything they can find.  Our land looks pristine, but it’s riddled with fenced areas […] They notified neither us nor the district--decided it in the city-level […] This is bound to create pasture scarcity, and we pleaded this on all levels [of government].

A typical view in villages outside of Ulaanbaatar where people fence off their plots of land, called “hashas.” [Photo Credit: Peter Bittner]

In economic development we often talk about the importance of private land ownership and land tenure in promoting the appropriate incentives to spur economic growth and prosperity.  As a former student of economics, I agree that this is an important institution that should be protected by the rule of law.  Now, as a student of agricultural development, I see how the way in which an institutional change is implemented can be almost more important than the policy shift itself.  It is critically important to consider how implementation actions influence all parties subject to the tangible effects of policies such as privatization.  The injustice that the people, animals, and environment of the 21^st Khoroo will endure due to this decision and mismanagement has shown me that when it comes to policy change, it’s the details that matter.

[1] Tumenbayar, Nyamaa. 2000. "Land Privatization Optioin for Mongolia." Constituting the Commons: Crafting Sustainable Commons in the New Millennium, the Eighth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University. http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/133.

[1] Fernandez-Gimenez, Maria E., Akira Kamimura, and Batbuyan Batjav. 2008. Implementing Mongolia's Land Law: Progress and Issues. Research Project, Nagoya University, Japan: Center for Asian Legal Exchange.

[1] Interview with a 21^st Khoroo  Local Official of Songinokhairkan District on July 20,2016.