Ulan Bator, Jan 29 The Mongolian government has decided to stockpile at least 10,000 tonnes of livestock meat to ensure a steady supply for residents of the national capital during the spring season of 2025.
Relevant officials have been assigned to oversee the supply, distribution, sales, quality and safety of the reserved meat, according to a statement from the government's press office on Wednesday.
During the harsh spring season, as nomadic livestock become lean and herders have fewer animals to sell, meat prices rise in urban areas, leading to potential shortages.
Ulan Bator is home to about half of Mongolia's 3.5-million population, and livestock meat is the primary food consumed by Mongolians, Xinhua news agency reported.
As one of the world's last remaining nomadic nations, Mongolia had 57.6 million livestock at the end of 2024, according to the National Statistics Office.
Mongolia's National Agency for Meteorology and Environmental Monitoring has forecasted that most parts of the country will experience colder temperatures than the long-term average throughout the winter.
Over the weekend, temperatures plunged to minus 44.4 degrees celsius in Otgon soum, an administrative subdivision of Zavkhan province in western Mongolia.
This is the coldest temperature recorded in Mongolia so far this winter, the weather monitoring agency in a statement.
With its strongly continental climate, the Asian country endures long and bitterly cold winters when temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius are typical.
"Last year, the lowest temperature recorded in our country was minus 48.8 degrees Celsius on January 23 in the western province of Zavkhan," the agency said, predicting similar conditions this winter.
The cold wave is expected to cause significant disruptions, and the public, especially nomadic herders, are urged to take precautionary measures to protect themselves and their livestock from the extreme conditions.
Earlier this month, the agency had warned that at least 40 per cent of the country's territory was at high risk of experiencing the extreme wintry weather 'dzud' this winter.
The dzud is a Mongolian term to describe a severely cold winter when many livestock die because the ground is frozen or covered in snow.
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