From wasteland to beef heartland

A worker shovelling feed for cattle that are being fattened for slaughter in Tongliao, China’s Inner Mongolia region. — Keith Bradsher/The New York Times

TONGLIAO, long an area of sand, gravel and camels on the eastern fringe of the Gobi Desert, has been transformed into lush grasslands crisscrossed with rows of poplar trees – and the heart of China’s growing cattle industry.

Over the past several decades, the administrative prefecture in China’s Inner Mongolia region has converted large expanses of arid land to cornfields, grassland and forest.