Planning and Development of Enterprise in Livestock Sector
Ronak*, Ashok Baindha, Sanjay K. Rewani, Subhash chand
Department of Veterinary & A.H. Extension Education, PGIVER, Jaipur
Email: ronakdhillan@gmail.com
Abstract
Livestock make a major, although largely underestimated, contribution to rural development in developing countries. They produce food, enhance crop production and provide additional economic goods and services as well as cash income. The inclusion of livestock diversifies and increases total farm production and income, provides year-round employment and disperses risk. Sales of livestock products provide funds for purchasing crop inputs and for financing farm investments. The difficulties associated with increasing sustainable animal production are exacerbated by limited public-sector investment and weak, ineffective support services. Programmes and projects are often poorly designed and inadequately targeted, leading to the inefficient and fragmented allocation of scarce development resources. Policies related to the livestock sector are often incoherent with ill-defined goals and with little or no assessment of their likely impact. The lack of consistent, integrated strategies that focus limited resources on identified and attainable goals remains a major constraint to livestock development. Farmers should concentrate and intensify their livestock combination practices especially that of piggery, which is the optimal combination enterprise and that enterprise combination because of their high profitability levels. There is obviously a need for an effective policy and planning framework that will optimize development resources and provide the necessary support and economic environment to allow a country’s livestock resources to express its potential.
Key words: Livestock, Enterprise, Planning, Development.
Introduction: Planning and development of an enterprise in the livestock sector involves several key steps:
- Market research: Conduct thorough market research to identify the demand for livestock products in your target market. Understand the trends, competition, and potential customers.
- Business plan: Develop a comprehensive business plan that outlines your goals, target market, products or services, marketing strategy, financial projections, and operational plan.
- Legal requirements: Understand the legal requirements for operating a livestock enterprise in your area, including permits, licenses, and regulations related to animal welfare and food safety.
- Infrastructure and facilities: Invest in suitable infrastructure and facilities for housing, feeding, and managing livestock. Ensure proper sanitation, ventilation, and space for the animals.
- Animal health and nutrition: Implement a comprehensive animal health and nutrition program to ensure the well-being of your livestock. Work with veterinarians and nutritionists to develop appropriate feeding plans and preventive health measures.
- Breeding and genetics: Select high-quality breeding stock to improve the genetic potential of your herd or flock. Consider factors such as growth rate, disease resistance, and reproductive performance.
- Marketing and sales: Develop a marketing strategy to promote your livestock products and attract customers. Consider selling directly to consumers, through farmers’ markets, or to wholesale buyers such as restaurants or grocery stores.
- Financial management: Monitor your finances closely and track expenses, revenues, and profitability. Consider seeking financing options such as loans or grants to support the growth of your enterprise.
An approach to livestock-sector planning
The FAO Animal Production and Health Division (AGA) is developing a methodology to provide a rational basis for livestock-sector planning that will assist governments in determining their own policies and priorities. The principles described apply equally to a particular segment, species or geographical region of the subsector-milk production, animal health or the sub humid zone. Most livestock development strategies have similar aims, namely, to: conserve the natural resource base, raise productivity through better utilization of available resources: capital (animals), land and labour, expand production.
Strategy and programme formulation
A development strategy needs to anticipate and identify those forces that drive a particular livestock production system and the subsector as a whole. These can include population growth, market development (urbanization and income growth), technological change and a changing resource base. For animal production, possible programmes and policy interventions include the following broad classifications:
On-farm interventions, adapted to specific agro-ecological conditions and production systems. These interventions commonly aim at increasing the availability or utilization of local feeds, control of economically important diseases (internal and external parasites) and/or improved housing and management.
Institutional changes, including the structure and function of support services covering input supply, research, extension and training, processing and marketing and credit. Institutional programmes often complement technical interventions and aim at providing a support framework for livestock production that should be both cost-effective and congruent with overall government policies. The concept of “private” and “public” good will increasingly determine who will pay for such services.
Genetic improvement programmes aimed at improving the livestock resource base. Options include within-breed selection of adapted indigenous breeds, substitution with exotic breeds or cross-breeding. The choice largely depends on the production system, its objectives and the resources at its disposal. Experience has shown serious misjudgement with policies aimed at importing exotic breeds with a corresponding neglect of indigenous breeds in many developing countries. Whatever breeding programme is adopted, equal attention needs to be given to the dissemination of improved genetic material. Dissemination concerns the institutional aspects as well as the choice of biotechnology, such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer.
Animal health programmes aimed at limiting the impact of disease on animal production. Policy issues concern who will provide and pay for such services. Foremost is the need to control and protect (quarantine) the national livestock resource from major epizootic diseases. Disease monitoring, veterinary investigation and legislation (public health and meat inspection) also fall within the public domain.
Processing and marketing policies related to investment in the necessary infrastructure that enables livestock products to safely supply existing demands as well as those of the future. Such specific issues as the design of structures, equipment, training and quality, along with the question of the degree of state intervention (marketing boards, etc.) in the market, must also be addressed.
Impact assessment
The predictive phase of the strategy design and planning process examines the various policy options and their implications in light of the government’s broader development objectives. Strategy impact assessments usually address issues such as:
- Economic efficiency;
· Distribution and equity considerations (of both costs and benefits);
· Stability (food supply, income, export earnings, etc.) and risk considerations;
· Sustainability (environmental, financial and institutional);
· Conformity with government objectives.
Analysing the SWOT Matrix, Identification of External and Internal Factors The first step is to capture information and identify internal and external factors relating to beef cattle enterprise, by conducting discussions and interviews using questionnaire. Internal factors include the strengths and weaknesses. External factors include the opportunities and threats. The tools used in the analysis are SWOT Matrix. This matrix combines opportunities and threats which can be match to the strengths and weaknesses to produce an alternative strategy, that is SO strategy, strategy WO, WT strategy, and ST strategy.
Conclusions
Livestock production has grown faster than agricultural production in most developing countries. Historically, growth has come primarily from the expansion of livestock numbers rather than an increase in productivity. The development of livestock in many developing countries is constrained by minimal public-sector investment and inefficient and poorly coordinated support services, however. This situation can, in part, be attributed to a lack of any consistent strategy for livestock development, which is exacerbated by inadequate analytical tools and a lack of information on which to base decision-making. Farmers and government must team up to find a means of reducing feed cost. Some ways of achieving these is for the government to subsidize livestock production by setting up livestock research centres and state agricultural development programmes to develop genetically improved breeds of livestock which efficiently converts feed. There is need for research to focus critically on indigenously automated livestock equipment that can reduce the work load during feeding and other health management activity. Livestock farmers should adopt cost and risk reduction strategy known as enterprise combination and increase their stock number supplying them with quality feeds so as to foster increased efficiency in livestock production.
Clearly, increased livestock production will depend ultimately on the adoption of appropriate technology, improved support services, market access and infrastructural development to stimulate increased productivity. However, there must be a framework of coherent policies and development strategies that facilitate such development and ensure that the full potential of livestock in developing countries is exploited. FAO, with its unique collection of expertise and development experience, is ideally placed to assist member countries in reviewing and exploring the options for developing their livestock resources.
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