Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

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Grasslands of the world
with supplementary irrigation. The agronomic, economic and environmental
implications of these new developments for outdoor grazing, though largely
positive on balance, provide a formidable challenge.
SEMANTICS
Luga, senokosy i pastbishcha [meadows, hay meadows and pastures] and
Lugovodstvo [meadow cultivation ] are Russian terminology to emphasize
the distinction commonly drawn between land for hay or for grazing ,
respectively, where the English language would simply refer to grassland .
Russian terminology tends to distinguish between “meadows” as dominated
by hay-type grasses and “pastures” as utilized through grazing, whereas this
distinction has little meaning in contemporary English. However, in Russian
terminology, the term “meadows” (composed of mesophytes) is often used in
contrast to “steppe” (xerophytes), and assumes significance in dry steppe land
crossed by rivers, which are bordered by extensive floodplains that harbour
the meadows. Meadows have a more temperate and humid climate resonance
(Shennikov, 1950). Meadow and steppe are used as descriptive terms away from
the landscape or geographical zones they represent. The continued usage in
Russian of terms such as meadow steppe, desert steppe and mountain steppe
add to the confusion (Gilmanov, 1995). In this chapter, grassland is used in the
general sense, including steppe, whereas pasture refers to a particular field or
application. Maize silage is a fodder and so are Sudan grass and alfalfa, but the
latter are called forages when grazed.
Emphasis on hay as the principal source of fodder to see cattle through the
winter has been typical of Russian “grassland ” terminology. Early mention
of haymaking by the northern Slavs date back to the birth of their civilization,
around 1000 A.D. Numerous are the references in the arts to “village
hay-festivals” as the entire peasant community was engaged in the process
of mowing and bringing in the hay. Hay , rather than fodder crops , was the
rule. A high ratio of meadow to arable land was essential to sustain farming
(Chayanov, 1926). Fodder beet, rape and turnips were much less grown than in
more Atlantic climates further west. One reason was that most of the hay was
derived from low-lying meadow land that had no other economic use. Second,
the growing season for fodder crops is either too short, in the north, or too dry ,
in the east and south, or both. Even alfalfa is a late arrival; it is believed to have
been grown in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan before the Greco-Persian wars of the
sixth and fifth centuries BC; it is, however, unlikely to have reached the Volga
region earlier than it did Western Europe because of the geographic northsouth
isolation mentioned above.
CLIMATE, VEGETATION AND SOILS
Somewhat Atlantic in climate at its start near the Baltic Sea, on its way east
the Eurasian plain is met by an increasing severity and length of continental