How to increase the income of livestock farmers?
Dr. Shrikant S. Patil
Associate Professor, Department of Animal nutrition,
College of Veterinary Science and A.H., Sardarkrushinagar- 385 506.
In India, livestock sector is an integral part of agriculture and contributed more than 30 percent of Agriculture and 4 % of Total GDP of India. Livestock helps the farmers for own nutritional security with nutrient rich foods like milk, meat, eggs etc. Besides this also helps in generation of income, employment and acts as hedge against emergencies like crop failure, draught, sickness etc. It also contributes to the foreign exchange of country through export.
Since independence, Government of India is trying hard for development of Livestock sector and agriculture sector as a whole. Due to adoption of better technology, subsidies, remunerative prices for crop, formation of cooperative dairy structures, has led to 3.7 times increase in India’s food production. Milk production has increased from 17 million tons in 1950-51 to 195 million tons in 2020. The total egg production in the country was just 1.83 billion in the year 1950 -51 which has taken a quantum jump of 50 times in 2020 to 100 billion eggs. . Livestock has been an important source of livelihood for small farmers. They contributed about 16% to their income, more so in states like Gujarat (24.4%), Haryana (24.2%), Punjab (20.2%) and Bihar (18.7%) (Planning Commission, 2012). However, this enormous jump in production has not led to the similar desirable change in the farmers’s income in most of the cases. The NSSO data on Consumption Expenditure Survey for year 2011-12 reveals that more than one fifth of rural households with self-employment in agriculture as their principal occupation (such households fit into the definition of farmers) were having income less than the poverty line. Excessive dependency on agriculture without proper with animal husbandry leads to low income among farmers especially in a country like India. Along with increase in the GDP of country, welfare and increase in the income of farmers should be the part of strategies going ahead.
Constraints of improving the income of livestock farmers
Livestock sector contributes almost thirty percent of agriculture output but receives only about 12% of the total public outlay of agriculture budget. Different subsidies, funding and insurance are available on almost every crop but almost no sufficient supportive measures are there for loss of animals by livestock owners. So, before going into the strategies of improving the livestock farmers income, we should know the constraints first. Amelioration of these constraints can lead to improvement in the production as well as the income of farmers.
Constraints are as listed below,
- Technological constraints:
It includes all constraints faced by farmers for adoption of technologies like,
a. Non availability of proven quality germplasm/semen for cross breeding of animals.
b. Deficit of feeds and fodders- At present, the country faces a net deficit of 35.6% green fodder, 10.95% dry crop residues and 44% concentrate feed ingredients (IGFRI, 2013). Nearly 4% of total cultivated area utilized for fodder production is nearly constant from last three decades.
c. Lack of knowledge on scientific management and rearing of animals
d. Need for adequate veterinary infrastructure and animal health services especially with respect to manpower for overall development of the livestock sector. Till date also only 29 per cent of animals get AI services in India. and rest 70 per cent of animals in India need AI services. - Socio-economic constraints
a. rigidity to change from the traditional system of rearing to modern scientific rearing..
b. Poverty and lack of subsidies and external aids
c. Low level of education especially in the context of taking farm decisions and acquiring new ideas (Mazumdar et al., 2014).
d. There is a gender role in animal husbandry and women dominates the total work load as compared to men in this sector. However, special training targeting women are lacking. - Infrastructural constraints
a. Asses to Poor institutional credit facilities- The credit flow is only 12 per cent in animal husbandry.
b. Lack of transportation in some areas
c. Lack of marketing facilities.
d. Non availability of cheap labour at some places - Extension services:
Lack of Pashu Vigyan Kendras on the pattern of Krishi Vigyan Kendras in agriculture sector also leads to lower and slower dissemination technologies to livestock farmers.
Strategies to improve the income of livestock farmers
By keeping in view the constraints, the improvement of livestock income will need a multi- strategic approach as below,
- Genetics and breeding Initiatives:
Scientists and policy makers were not persistent with their strategies of breeding in India. Till 1960, focus was on selective breeding and improvement of local breeds of cattle and buffaloes. Slowly, with advent of technologies and availability of good quality semen externally, focus was shifted from selective breeding to cross breeding. Results were immensely encouraging with increase in milk availability of 393 g/day from only 132 g in 1952. However, we need a mixed strategy of both selective and cross breeding in country. And, even it will vary with location and different climatic conditions. Area specific approach is needed in these regards. Cross-breeding with high yielding exotic breeds should be done in areas with adequate facility for feed and fodder. While, Genetic upgradation of non-descript cattle with pure indigenous breeds can be followed in resource deficient as well harsh weather, terrain conditions.
In poultry sector, due to initiates by Government institutes like CARI, Izzatnagar and visionary like Dr. B.V. Rao from private sector much has been done in genetic improvement with development of strains having ability to produce more than 320 eggs and broilers chickens with consistent FCR of 1.6. - Feeds and feeding management:
Balanced nutrition helps us for improving not only the productivity but the efficiency of production. Initiatives like encouraging the farmers for cultivation of good quality green fodders at his/her own farm is the need of the time for year-round supply of green fodder. Again, development of fodder banks for dry fodders and even technologies like roughage block and roughage pellets needs to be adopted by farmers. Poultry competed directly with other animals and with humans for grains supply. A year-round plan should be their for cultivation of main ingredients like maize and soy bean at national level. It will help in reducing the fluctuation and stabilize in prices of this major ingredients. A lot of research and technologies have been developed like ration balancing, complete ration, bypass fat, bypass proteins, hay, silage making etc. which needs to get adopted by farmers. - Livestock Management practices
Management is also very important which can be observed that just by milking high yielding animas thrice a day instead of twice can increase the mil production by 10-15 percent. Clean and hygenic milk production is very important as affects the keeping quality as well it has got direct relation with human health. - Veterinary aid
We still could not able to irradicate the diseases like FMD from our country. The annual total economic loss due to only FMD in India ranges from RS 12,000 crore to 14,000 crore. So, Regular supply of vaccine, man power and timely treatment of livestock is essential. Diseases not only causes mortality but significantly affect the production of animals. Livestock farmer needs to get better understanding of this hidden losses in his livestock enterprise and ways to tackle it. - Government subsidies:
NABARD as apex institute for loans and subsidies to livestock farmers is working from long time. However, it gives subsidies for dairy animals. It also should work on allotting subsidies towards calf rearing, set up of feed processing plants, diagnostic laboratories, semen producing stations etc. It will help to attract the new entrepreneurship in the field who can suffice the needs of livestock owners (Chopade et al., 2019). - Post-harvest cold storage facilities:
Milk and meat both are easily perishable food items and get spoiled in no time with cold chain is not maintained. Either government subsidise the this endeavours of cold storage facilities or can even be subsided for common peoples. PPP models are also can be a solution for this high input cost activity. - Value addition of animal products:
Higher middle-class peoples in metropolitan cities are preferring cow from desi cow and even organic milk at much higher prices (almost one and half to two times) than normal milk. Milk can be act as functional food e,g. high content of carotenoids helps in slowing the ageing process, high omega3 and 6 milk. A brand can be developed with customer management and satisfaction. It also can fetch higher prices to the livestock farmers. - Establishment of Pashu Vighyan Kendras (PVK):
Like Krishi Vigyan Kendra, a specialized training centre i.e. Pashu vigyan kendra can be established at district levels for dissemination of latest technologies and interventions. It is one of the most needed refoem for connecting the lab with livestock owners. - People’s cooperatives:
Replication of AMUL cooperative dairy model to different locations of country. Even this cooperative model can get replicated in other animal produce like chicken, meat, wool etc. It will give a bargaining to livestock owners and steady price to their produce throughout the year, Some NGO like PRADAN are already working on this concept in states like M.P, Bihar and Orisaa. But this experiment needs to be replicated at all India level. - Increase the expenditure on education, training and research and technologies in animal husbandry sector through ICAR and state universities for increasing the number of trained personnel and technology development. Human resource especially in science is one of the most neglected part in our country. They should be encouraged and get incentives to stop the brain drain and allowed to work on their respective mandate. A scientist can really be extension worker or Extension worker cannot be an excellent teacher at most of the instances. So, collaboration should be their but everyone should be allotted and free to carry out their respective roles precisely without forced inter mingling.
Conclusion:
We have to accept the fact that to increase the livestock farmers income is not a single factor endeavor nor it can be achieved in 5-6 years. It needs a focused and integrated approach and each concrete step should get followed by others in a systematic manner.
References: - Statista (2019). https://www.statista.com/statistics/734405/egg-production-volume-india assesed on 20-11-2020.
- IGFRI (2013). Vision 2050 document. P.8.
- Mazumdar, D.K., Kalita, D.N. and Kalita, S.C. (2014). Status and Constraints in Livestock Farming amongst Tribal Farmers of Kamrup District in Assam Economic Affairs 59 : 757-765.
- Chopde, S.S., Datir, R.P and Patil, M.R. (2014). Strategies for Doubling Income of Indian Farmers’ through Dairying: A Review. Asian Journal of Dairy and Food Research 38 (4): 269-272.
Strategy to Increase the Income of Livestock Farmers in India
