Livestock production in India -Prospects and Challenges
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan*
Introduction
We are living in an era characterized by different levels of human disparity and livelihood insecurity. Recently food security, economic recession, severe drought and emerging diseases have become alarming issues. Wide gap exists between availability and requirement of protein sources in the country.
It is in this context we have to emphasize the need for augmenting livestock and poultry production in the country. India has 187.38 million cattle, which is about 15% of the world cattle population, of which around 12. 07 % are crossbred. Tamilnadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Punjab account for 60 percent of the crossbred cattle population. 96.62 million Buffalo population in the country comes around 56 percent of the world Buffalo population.
India has now emerged as the largest milk producing country in the world with more than 104 million tones per annum. Of the total households in rural areas, about 73 percent own livestock. Income from livestock sector accounts 15-40 per cent of total farm household incomes. Small and marginal farmers account for three fourth of this household raising 56 per cent of Bovine population. As per 2006 cattle census of the Department of Animal Husbandry, India has the largest number of animals. By2010-2011 and 2020 Government of India set the target to produce 111 and 170million tones of milk respectively. More than 80 percent of milk produced in the country is marketed in the unorganized sector and cooperative and private dairies share the remaining 20 percent equally. Per capita availability of milk has increased from 112 gms per day in 1968-69 to 252 gms during 2007-08 but it is still low compared to world average of 265 gms/day.
The livestock sector contributed 5.26 percent to the total GDP during 2006-07 and contributed 31.7 percent GDP from total agricultural activities. In terms of economic accomplishment, milk is number one farm commodity towards contribution to National economy. Major share of growth is attributed to dairy and poultry sectors. Country’s livestock population continues to grow steadily, especially among goats and poultry. 11th five year plan envisages an annual growth of 6-7 percent per annum for this sector. The rural sector is being increasingly seen as a potential source of domestic demand. High input livestock farming systems need more emphasis in order to increase the average returns per family.
Analysis of the trends over the last three decades indicates that the growth in poultry and dairy sectors has exceeded the growth in cereal production. This may be due to rapid urbanization, population growth, rising levels of income and falling prices of livestock products. There are certain indications, which suggest that the demand led livestock growth is expected to continue and by 2020 more than 60 percent of meat and 50 percent of milk will be produced in the developing countries. China and India are likely to emerge as the primary producers of meat and milk respectively.
Even though India is the largest milk producing country in the world. Productivity per animal is only less than 50 % of the world average. This is mainly due to poor level of nutrition and low genetic potential for milk production and health care. This clearly indicates that conventional farming system is still prevalent in the country.
Increasing per capita consumption of milk increases the domestic demand of milk. As domestic consumption of milk increases, wide demand supply gap scarcity arises. Even though consumption of food grains has decreased during the year 2007-2008, animal protein sources like milk, meat and eggs shows a positive trend. This emphasizes the need for increasing domestic production to meet the ever-increasing need for animal protein sources. Annual per capita cereal and pulses availability has declined from 457 gm and 40.16 gm respectively in 1995 and to 391 gm and 31.5 gm respectively in 2005. But Indians are eating more meat and eggs. Per capita egg consumption is expected to close at 43 eggs in 2007-08 while broiler meat at 2 kg. It is expected to reach 50 eggs per year and 2.3 kg per year of broiler meat by 2010. In order to increase the quantity of animal protein sources to meet the increasing needs of the population; sufficient quantity of grains like maize will be required at a reasonable price. Moreover rate of agricultural growth fell from 5 percent in the mid 1980s to less than 2 percent in the last 5 years. As per recent analysis of Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, farm sector can generate 13.7million jobs in the livestock sector alone.
Vegetarianism
Recently Vegetarianism has got wide acceptance in all developed countries including Europe and United States. But for developing nations like India where protein malnutrition is a serious problem, vegetarianism is really a controversial issue. People for the Ethical treatment of animals-PETA are propagating the vegetarian concept throughout the world. According to PETA, Chickens, pigs, cows and fish accumulate toxic chemicals in their flesh and fat which is responsible for almost all the toxic residues like dioxins, pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics. While arguing for Vegetarianism, many agencies are exploiting the situation by indirectly promoting Soya milk and related products, which India cannot afford. Animal protein is the cheapest and quickest remedy for countries like India having serious protein malnutrition. Moreover Livestock sector is one of the major rural livelihood options in the country.
Organic farming
Growing awareness on deleterious effects of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and intensive livestock farming has led to organic farming as an alternative to conventional farming. Organic farming provide benefits in terms of environmental protection, conversion of non-renewable resources, improved food quality and reorientation of agriculture towards areas of market demand. Global organic production has increased 20 percent annually and expected to reach 80 billion US dollars in 2008. Recent estimates reveal that around 2.5 lakh organic livestock farms covering about 17-18 million hectare are in the world. Annual growth rate of more than 25 % is recorded in European union, USA, Japan, Australia and china. India could garner a major share of this rapidly growing international market for organic products by making use of its strength in livestock sector.
Swine Flu
Globally Avian influenza and Swine flu are emerging as a dreadful threat to public health. Since the source of infection was not from pigs World Health Organization (WHO) renamed Swine flu as A (H1N1) Flu. The disease has already moved in to the sixth phase of pandemicity. World Health Organization’s recent reports reveal that this disease is spreading at a faster pace. Since the source of infection is not from pigs, a serious debate exists among European countries regarding the earlier nomenclature of the disease as swine flu. World, which is already reeling under economic recession and food security issues, swine flu is affecting the production, consumption and export of meat. Pork production ranks first in the world followed by beef and chicken. According to OIE there is no evidence of the spread of the disease through food. Properly cooked pork is safe for consumption. Cooking pork to 160 degree Fahrenheit kills Swine influenza virus symptoms. According to FAO there is no evidence of a threat to food chain at this stage as it is a human crisis. FAO- OIE (World organization for Animal Health) Crisis management committee is assessing the epidemiological situation in the pig industry at the international and national levels for disease surveillance.
Extension strategies
With the launching of decentralized planning followed by vigorous efforts to empower women and the renewed enthusiasm to spread the light of literacy, mass media is now in an advantageous position to meet the challenges of rural uplift. This emphasizes the need for evolving an effective extension and media strategy for knowledge dissemination among farming community and women self help groups. Veterinarians can play a key role by concentrating on farmer friendly and need based extension programmes for effective dissemination of scientific information on livestock production.
Self help group as a development model
Recently as a new development model, more number of women self help groups are interested to undertake livestock production as one of their livelihood options. Many women SHGs are involved in dairying under the impression that it won’t need much skill. But they will gradually feel that it needs more skilled work. So there exists a knowledge gap among women SHGs in the areas of scientific livestock rearing practices in scientific breeding, selection of animals, housing, feeding, management, disease control, value addition and marketing of milk and milk products. Interventions, which can fill the above knowledge gap, must be given adequate importance.
Concept model for knowledge transfer-A Case study
As a case study, Animal husbandry information units attached to the veterinary institutions of Kerala are very effective in knowledge transfer. Women SHGs are provided with unlimited access to use the facilities available with the Animal husbandry information units (AHIU). Veterinarians at the panchayat level are co-ordinating the knowledge dissemination process through the media. Veterinary institutions and Women SHGs subscribe dailies having farm columns, farm journals and other farm publications. A regular mechanism to view/listen farm programmes in the electronic media is incorporated. Based on the programmes and feedback discussions have to be conducted to adopt the sustainable practices. Women SHGs will be given participation in selecting the programmes on livestock production and marketing.
Management of high yielder
One of the important indicators of productivity is the total milk production during lactation. High producing animals consume more feed, but the increased milk they produced fetches more than the cost of the additional feed. Therefore, by increasing the milk production of a cow or buffalo, profit per unit of milk produced can be increased. Management of high producers can be divided into Feeding, Shelter, Milking and Health management.
Bypass energy and protein supplements can be fed either individually or together in cases where energy and protein are deficient. Total mixed ration or partially total mixed ration concept will yield better results. Fodder cultivation will reduce the cost of production.
Health Management:
Mastitis, Milk fever and Grass tetany are the important diseases of the high producing dairy animals, which usually appear immediately after calving. Mastitis and associated high somatic cell counts cost producers because of decreased milk production, treatment costs, discarded milk and increased involuntary culling. Cattle must be vaccinated against contagious diseases like Foot and mouth and Hemorrhagic septicemia. Postpartum deworming of cattle will help to increase milk production.
Mastitis free cows
Researchers of North Carolina State university of USA have found a gene that codes for a protective protein that is naturally suspended in cows milk and blood plasma. The protein binds to bacterial endotoxin and neutralizes it. This also sensitizes the lining of the cow’s mammary glands to very low levels of endotoxin. After being sensitized, the mammary cells can quickly start an attack against any infiltrating bacteria and destroy them before they get established in the udder. Thus making mastitis immune cows a reality in future!
Trends in livestock farming
Rapidly increasing demand for livestock products, along with the changes in international trade, is placing pressure on Asia's livestock sector both to expand and adapt. This adaptation takes the form of two major shifts - a shift in livestock functions and species, and a shift in agro-ecological and geographical zones, involving structural and technological changes. There is a trend from multi-purpose to single purpose animals, with animal protein the overriding objective. Another trend is the growing importance of monogastric as economic converters of concentrate feed.
Structural changes. Two important structural changes apply across production systems: Levels of livestock production and processing are increasing in response to technological development, market requirements and insufficient returns to labour in traditional systems. Where alternative employment opportunities exist, such as in the rapidly industrialized countries of the region, traditional subsistence-orientated livestock farming is often abandoned, opening up market and expansion opportunities for other farmers or commercial entrepreneurs.
Poultry production has often developed from a simple farm operation to a complex vertical operation of related industries and enterprises, including grain production for animal feeds, feed mills, slaughterhouses and processing plants, food chain stores and wholesale enterprises.
The growth potential for extensive grazing and roughage production is limited. Commercial production of pigs and poultry is increasing relative to production from grazing and mixed farming systems. Pork and broiler production will also increase relative to ruminant meat production. This is a direct result of the better conversion efficiencies of concentrate feed in pigs and poultry.
Faced with increasing resource constraints from a small land base, countries resort to importing meat and other livestock products to satisfy the growing demand. This is evidenced by a growing trade deficit in these products. The developing countries of Asia had a net trade deficit of 313,000 tons of ruminant meat and a net trade surplus of 409,000 tons of monogastric meat.
Technological changes like development, transfer and adaptation of technologies will focus on improving efficiency of feed utilization and increasing animal productivity. Feed requires land for production and this continues to be the limiting factor to the sector's expansion even if countries resort to feed imports. Continuing industrial development in the region will also make traditional livestock raising practices less competitive because of diminishing returns to labor. So we are witnessing a dualistic mode of development, with two conflicting components. First, a modern, demand-driven and capital-intensive sector, producing poultry meat, eggs, pork, and sometimes milk, increasingly uses state-of-the-art technologies. It is rapidly expanding to meet urban demand but it is also susceptible to market upheavals; it generates little employment, poses great environmental risks because it tends to concentrate in areas with good market access, and it creates a number of new challenges for human and veterinary public health. Technology uptake has been fast, driven by commercial interests. We may take, as an extreme example, the intensive animal production in the Netherlands, where some 20 million pigs and cattle are confined on a land area of about 33,000 sq km and where milk output alone is equal to that of the whole of developing Africa.
At the same time, a traditional, resource-driven and labour-intensive sector continues to provide a multitude of services to subsistence-oriented farms. While not efficient in terms of introduced inputs, this sector uses resources of little or no alternative uses, and for the same reason, its potential to expand beyond moderate growth rates is constrained by low technology uptake, insufficient market facilities and infrastructure, and small economies of scale. Often, these systems are closed cycles of nutrients, farm labour, energy, etc. Unless these cycles are broken, technology uptake will remain constrained. Extension interventions in these areas with regard to scientific feeding, management, food safety and marketing will yield better results.
Productivity gains can be achieved by enhancing nutrient and energy flows between the crop and livestock component. Mixed farming system may be threatened by the disappearance of livestock, triggered by population pressure, fragmentation of arable land, poverty and lack of market access.
The changing trends must address the contribution of livestock to food security and food production; the protection of the environment in the face of increasingly intensive farming methods; the maintenance and generation of social equity, which may be jeopardized by industrialization and job loss; and the protection of human health and welfare. It is therefore essential that policy makers and planners responsible for livestock development define future strategies in the broader context of human development and the sustainable utilization of our limited natural resources.
Conclusion
Livestock form an invaluable resource to many people, in particular the rural societies living in more remote environments, and yet at the same time livestock may be manipulated, perhaps unnaturally, to meet the specific and sophisticated demands of the higher income classes and, in the process, contribute to inequality, to environmental degradation and to public health problems. Interactions between livestock and the environment are many and complex - a challenge for policymakers for whom socio-economic factors are likely to be far more pressing and politically sensitive. Putting the environment in the forefront does not mean that only environmental objectives count. On the contrary, environmental goals can only be effectively tackled if accompanied by sound economic policies and should ensure that the problems are no longer ignored but effectively tackled.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan, Asst Director, Department of Animal husbandry, Government of Kerala, Visiting Scientist, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, United States. Email-
tpsethu2000@yahoo.com
