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D.L. MICHALK
often limited to existing cultivated lands and to grain production which increasingly cramped our efforts.
"Our policy is to spare no effort in promoting grain production and diversified undertakings, [but] we should strive to protect existing grasslands, use them rationally, step up their development, rear as much livestock as possible, and at the same time encourage the raising of domestic animals and poultry in the vast countryside and so significantly develop animal husbandry."
As part of this planned expansion of beef output, officials in the southern province of Guangdong identified the dry tropics of Hainan Island as a region suitable for beef production for two reasons: first, unlike other parts of Guangdong, low rainfall and infertile soil preclude production of economic crops, and, second, the region already has an abundance of native Yellow Ox cattle and a large area of wasteland which could be used more intensively for beef production (Michalk et al, 1985).
Present output from cattle grazing native rangeland in this region under traditional management (i.e. herded by day and coralled at night) is extremely low: 30-60 kg LWG/ha/yr. Inadequate nutrition, especially during the seven month dry season, is the major cause for low beef production in western Hainan. Experience in the dry tropics of northern Australia has shown range improvement with Stylosanthes legumes to be a successful means of increasing beef output in situations where "fixed area management" is practised.
While the Guangdong Government perceived the value of this type of technology for improving cattle production in Hainan, they also recognized that a lack of indigenous expertise in range science was a major constraint to the introduction, adaptation and popularization of appropriate range improvement technology for use on state farms where "fixed area management" is presently practised. To expedite technology transfer, Guangdong sought assistance from New South Wales, its "sister state" in Australia, to set up a "model farm" where field research could be undertaken to