Livestock in Mixed Farming: A leveraging asset for inclusive rural development in India

 

 

Indranil Biswas and Bikramjit Sinha

 

Over the last few years, structural transformation in the agricultural sector of developing countries has seen the spread of mixed farming with special emphasis on livestock products in particular. The main objective of this article is to highlight the gaps for smallholder livestock producers to gain sustainable livelihood more effectively. The livestock products discussed include milk, eggs and meat. The high-value livestock products for big markets have not been related to the vast majority of smallholders. The rural smallholder livestock producers mainly rely on informal market institutions to trade their products. It is argued that this blazing gap in smallholder livestock farming be addressed by focusing on S&T interventions like Telemedicine, VSAT, and more skill development centers, more number of para-vets and technical people as a part of valuable rural asset management.

 

Introduction

Livestock in mixed farming plays a vital role in the economic development and life of farmers in India. In the Asian region, livestock provides major additional contribution to agriculture through draft power, fuel, manure, and as fertilizer. Besides, animal products such as meat, milk and eggs provide the much required nutrition to rural population and are also a source of supplementary cash income. Globally, the livestock sector contributes 30% of the global agricultural output and uses about 80% of the land used for world agriculture (Word Bank, 2001). In the developing world, milk and meat production alone accounts for 26% of the agricultural GDP. The livestock sector has witnessed a phenomenal growth especially in the last decade owing to increased demand for food of animal origin and is often termed as the ‘livestock revolution’ (Chilonda and Otte, 2006). In India, 79% of rural households belong to the small and marginal farmers in terms of land holding (NSSO, 2003). So, in rural India livestock development activity must be undertaken focusing on small and marginal landholders. This year our focus is on livestock development with special preference to cattle and buffalo. Other components of livestock like poultry, piggery will be dealt in subsequent versions of the India S&T report. It is important to mention here that the observations made here are based on indicative data only.

 

Some key statistics on livestock in India

During the period 1997 to 2003, the total livestock population has decreased by around 14.1%. Among cattle, the population of indigenous breed has decreased by around 7.6% while crossbreed cattle shows an increase of 12.6%. There are only 30 breeds of cattle and 6 breeds of buffalo registered with the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), Karnal (http://www.nbagr.ernet.in/Accession%20number%20for%20Breeds.htm)

 

Fig 1: Change in number of different types of livestock during 1997-2003

Source:  Livestock Census, 2004 and FICCI presentation

 

India’s total milk production as in 2004 stood at 97.1 million tones which accounted for 14.9% of the global milk production.  Annual growth rate of milk production was 4.11% between 1990-91 and 2000-01. The per capita availability of milk in India is 241 gm/day which is much less than many developed countries like USA (661 gm/day), UK (656 gm/day).  The value of consumption of milk and milk products for 30 day period has increased from Rs. 5.29 (1977-78) to Rs 47.60 (2003-04) for rural India. Likewise, the value of meat production from beef has also increased over the years indicating the importance of livestock for rural people (Animal Husbandry Statistics 2006, www.dahd.nic.in/stat_files/BAHS2006%20web%20web.pdf)

 

 

Production of Eggs and Milk over the years

 

Fig 2: Milk and Egg production between 1985-86 and 2006-07 in India

Source: Agricultural Statistics at a Glance 2008 (Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying (DAHD). New Delhi.)

 

 

Meat requirement all over the world

 

Fig 3: Total meat consumption and projected consumption in the year 2020

Source: IFPRI Vision 2020 brief 61

 

From the above graph we have an idea of projected meat consumption in 2020. For India the consumption reaches 8 million tons in 2020 (just double from 1993). This rate is almost same for the rest of the world. We observed a declining trend of employment in livestock sector from 4.88% in the year 1983 to 3.05% in the year 2000. 

Key points to focus on:

 

Cattle/Buffalo:  capital for the rural people

In general, the small and marginal farmers (approx 79%) in rural India are multi skilled. They usually utilize their time to earn their livelihood through different activities, mostly in an unorganized manner. It may be handicrafts, repairing, manufacturing and seasonal migration to different places to work as daily waged labor etc. This migration to other areas can be reduced to a great extent if livestock mainly cattle and buffalo are utilized for supplementary income generation. Livestock should be promoted as an asset generator as well as banker for small and marginal multi skilled farmers in the rural areas.

These classes of people also use cattle and buffalo for mortgage to get money from moneylenders in case of emergency because no formal banking channel is present to cover the gap. Approximately 79% of the farmers are marginal and small farmers, so it is quite obvious that majority of them might be mortgaging their livestock assets in the same way. But the problem lies in the non-availability of data on these informal transactions.

 

 

Case Study

We can take an example of Raman Lal, a villager who had made up his mind to migrate to other areas, in spite of having livestock, land and house. Because was unable to manage a decent income for his sustenance. However, after getting training on livestock mainly on improved cow variety, from Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation (BAIF), Pune, a national level NGO, he was able to earn his livelihood and gave up the idea of migration. Like this there are hundreds of examples available with different NGOs and different Govt. departments. But there is a need to move further ahead in an integrative approach.

 [Details available http://www.baif.org.in/aspx_pages/annual1.pdf]

 

Status of livestock asset according to land holding capacity

 

Fig 4: Percentage of area operated for animal farming in rural India according to land-holding size

Source: NSS Report No.493 Appendix A, Livestock Ownership, 2002- 03

 

Fig 5: Percentage of area of animal farming for different livestock in rural India

Source: NSS Report No.493 Appendix A, Livestock Ownership, 2002- 03

 

Key points to focus on:

 

Milk and its products and marketing

Milk is an important source of nutrition as well as earning from livestock for rural people. There are two main ways of selling or marketing milk - through co-operatives and informal way. Operation flood has had significant impact on the Dairy Cooperative Network. As on March 2007 it:

[Source:  http://www.nddb.org/achievement/ataglance.html]

 

But more needs to be done to cover approximately 0.63 million villages under dairy cooperatives because it can boost the income level of the marginal farmers. Everyone is quite familiar with the story of AMUL, which started way back in 1946. But after that no such successful events has reoccurred in Indian dairy sector, especially in marketing. In West Bengal, Assam, Bihar so many efforts were initiated like Janata Dairy, Kamul etc. but they were not successful and some of them are non-existent now. The main reasons for success or failure are administrative handling, cooperative support, quality of product and of course business culture. These reasons make a difference between AMUL’s success story and others’ failure.

The other method of marketing or selling milk is the informal way. A large number of villages around cities, town, and semi urban areas use this method for marketing milk. The inherent problem with this method is that the farmers do not get proper price of their product. For instance, in Orissa, only 5% of the total marketable supply of milk is handled through cooperatives in which the profit margin is 0.22 US$ per kg of raw milk while the informal sellers like local milkman or per-urban farmers could get only about 0.13 US$ per kg.

[Source: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/pplpi/docarc/execsumm_wp16.pdf]

 

The quality of the milk sold informally is also of poor quality because these milk traders do not follow any safety standard guidelines or rules. From the nutritional point people consuming this milk are deprived of proper nutrition. Farmers probably get attracted by this informal channel for short term profit due to their unawareness of government schemes. Though this scenario may be prevalent across the nation there is no proper mapping of this informal way of selling of milk for the whole country. Here lies the utility of the multi skill training centre, which would acts as an information kiosk for the community as well as a collection funnel for data needed by the policy planners. Number of Dairy cooperatives registered under the Central Authority is 141 and for private dairies the figure is 103 and for others including mother dairies etc. it is 26 only. But for the state registration authorities the numbers are 105, 390 and 24.

[Source: www.dahd.nic.in/stat_files/BAHS2006%20web%20web.pdf]

 

Dairy Industries

As per MSME Census 2001-02, only 0.15% of the total registered MSMEs are related to dairy products (like manufacturing of ghee, khoa, ice-ream, sweet meats) in rural India. And for unregistered MSMEs, it is approximately 0.7% (sample based survey). So, the number of dairy related MSME is very less compared to other MSMEs. Further, there is no data regarding how much khoa, ghee or dairy related household products are produced everyday through the informal route which is an important indicator of income generation.

Key points to focus on:

 

Nutritional intake in rural India and Milk

As per NSSO (Report No. 513), the average daily intake of calories by rural population has dropped by 106 kcal over a period of 10 years. In 1993-94 it was 2153 kcal which decreased to 2047 kcal during 2004-05. Simultaneously, the share of food expenditure has dropped by 8.2% and 12.2% in rural and urban areas respectively.

In a recent report published by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) India stands 66th in Global Hunger Index (GHI) out of total 88 countries. The report also pointed out that children under age 5 are mostly suffering from mal nutrition.

Key points to focus on:

 

Rural transport and Bullock Cart

Since time memorial the bullock cart has been one of the predominant modes of transport in rural India. Around 15 million bullock carts are in use fulfilling two-thirds of rural India’s transportation needs and providing employment to an estimated 20 million people (Ramanujam, 1993). Unlike many other traditional aspects of rural Indian, the bullock cart successfully survived the massive onslaught of technology. So long as our village roads are not improved and made fit for mechanized transport, the role played by bullock carts will continue. Even if the rural roads are improved, bullock cart transportation is going to survive because of its user-friendliness in terms of low investment and non-technical nature of the material. Thus, it is evident that bullock cart is an important source of revenue generation in rural India.

Key point to focus on:

 

Livestock Diseases and Clinics

Death of livestock due to pests and diseases is one of the major concerns for livestock development in India. However, total disease related deaths in cattle are much higher than those in buffaloes. In cattle, Foot and Mouth disease is found to cause maximum deaths while in buffalo highest deaths occurred due to haemorrhagic septicemia in 2004 (Table A in appendix)

Fig 6: Types and number of livestock treatment facilities in India under the Department of Animal Husbandry and others

Source: www.dahd.nic.in/stat_files/BAHS2006%20web%20web.pdf

 

Figure 6 gives an overview of the types and number of livestock treatment facilities available in India in 2005.

Total number of buffalo breeding farms under Animal Husbandry Department (AHD) is 26. And the numbers of Gaushalas under AHD is 870 and the total under other departments is 2215.

 

In order to control the death of livestock the Central Government is implementing a Macro-management scheme called “Livestock Health and Disease Control” with an outlay of Rs. 525.00 crores.

The Scheme has the following components:

  • Assistance to States for Control of Animal Diseases (ASCAD)
  • National Project on Rinder Pest Eradication (NPRE)
  • Foot & Mouth Disease Control Programme (FMD-CP)
  • Professional Efficiency Development (PED)

Key points to focus on:

 

 

Concluding Remarks

 

 

 

Appendix

Table A: Livestock death due to diseases in India in 2004

Name of the main disease

Number of Livestock death

Bovine

Buffalo

Foot and mouth Disease

2232

83

Haemorrhagic septicimia

1395

834

Black quarter

915

41

Anthrax

238

4

Facioliasis

-

60

Rabies

64

1

Source: www.dahd.nic.in/stat_files/BAHS2006%20web%20web.pdf

 

 

 

References and additional readings:

 

 

 

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