Land access and feeding strategies in post-Soviet livestock husbandry: Evidence from a rangeland system in Kazakhstan

land and other assets and outcomes of post-independence reforms.We examine the factors determining the three feeding strategies using a farm survey dataset from south-eastern Kazakhstan to estimate a simultaneous equation system, considering herd size as an endogenous variable.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Herd size combined with access to land for fodder production largely determines how producers feed their livestock.Barriers to the substitution of pasture for purchased or self-produced fodder include cropland access, distance from markets, and credit availability, so that use of remote and seasonal pastures is the major feeding strategy employed by larger producers.Access to both arable land and pasture is dependent on land reform outcomes, which constrain farmers' livestock feeding decisions today.Other factors such as farmer education, human population density and household labor are less important.SIGNIFICANCE: Grazing expansion strategies employed by farmers studied here differ from those based on external input use observed in many regions of the world.Instead, they reflect the continuing importance of pastoral resources in rangeland environments implying important trade-offs to intensification which merit further study.