Agriculture

In the past the Mongolians did not engage in agriculture and were even prejudiced against it, although they were familiar with it. Agriculture was a secondary occupation of the poor levels of the society who had little or no cattle. When migrating from their winter site they sowed millet or barley, and when they returned to their winter camp – harvested it. Some families in the west of the country plowed land and sowed bread; they were even called taryachins, i.e. ploughmen. The Arats (countrymen) who had cattle exchanged wool, skins and cattle for corn from the neighboring settled people, mostly the Russians and the Chinese.

In the 17th century, when Mongolia was under the Chinese rule, the Mongolians became familiar with the agricultural methods of Chinese colonists who sowed wheat and barley on Mongolian lands. In the second half of the 19th century Russian peasants came to Mongolia who sowed bread in the north and west of the country. After the people’s revolution, however, agriculture was encouraged. In the extreme west agricultural collective farms were even created. Agriculture grew stronger after the Second World War. It was then that a certain type of agricultural economy was established in the form of national farms. Hundreds thousands of virgin lands were plowed; farms were provided with machinery and fertilizers. In the 1970s a new agricultural science – plant cultivation – was developed in Mongolia to breed plants suitable for local conditions, for example a new sort of “Orhon” wheat.

At present agriculture is developed in the regions with enough rains (Khangai, Khentei, Khalkhin Gol river valley). Wheat and fodder grain (barley, oats and millet) are mostly grown there.