Agriculture in Mongolia

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2010)

Agriculture in Mongolia constitutes over 10% of Mongolia's annual gross domestic product and employs one-third of the labor force.^[1] However, the high altitude, extreme fluctuation in temperature, long winters, and low precipitation provides limited potential for agricultural development. The growing season is only 95 – 110 days.^[2] Because of Mongolia's harsh climate, it is unsuited to most cultivation.

The agriculture sector therefore remains heavily focused on nomadic animal husbandry with 75% of the land allocated to pasture, and cropping only employing 3% of the population. About 35% of all households in Mongolia lived from breeding livestock.^[3][4] Most herders in Mongolia follow a pattern of nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralism.

Crops produced in Mongolia include wheat, barley, and potatoes. Animals raised commercially in Mongolia include sheep, goats, cattle, horses, camels, and pigs. They are raised primarily for their meat, although goats are valued for their hair which can be used to produce cashmere. Livestock breeds are increasingly challenged by land degradation and climate change. Populations suffer from more frequent and intense extreme weather events, especially brutal winter seasons called zuds that destroy forage and can decrease temperatures to around -50°C.^[5] While zuds used to occur about once every ten years, there have now been six in the past decade, with over six million animals (9% of total livestock) killed by these conditions in the winter of 2024.^[6]