A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANIC LIVESTOCK DEVELOPMENT IN PASTURE AND FOREST-BELT LANDSCAPES OF KAZAKHSTAN: AN INTEGRATED SPATIALECONOMIC APPROACH

Abstract

Sustainable organic livestock development requires environmental safeguards to be considered together with production performance, economic feasibility, and farmers’ readiness for transition. This methodological study proposes an integrated spatial-economic framework for evaluating organic livestock systems in pasture and forest-belt landscapes of Kazakhstan. The framework combines spatial-environmental, production, financial, and behavioural-institutional dimensions and introduces an environmental eligibility condition to prevent strong economic performance from compensating for critical ecological failure. Four hypothetical scenarios are used solely to demonstrate the calculation procedure: baseline conditions, pasture expansion, forest-belt conservation, and an integrated organic system. The scenario scores are illustrative inputs rather than measurements from farms, remote sensing, accounting records, or a new survey. Under the illustrative equal-weight example, the integrated indices are 0.50, 0.53, 0.57, and 0.73, respectively. These values demonstrate how the framework differentiates trade-offs among dimensions; they do not constitute empirical evidence that one scenario will produce these outcomes in Kazakhstan. The framework is intended to guide future farm-level data collection, GIS analysis, economic assessment, and behavioural surveys. Empirical validation should include region-specific carrying capacities, spatial data, cash-flow parameters, stakeholder-derived weights, and sensitivity analysis