Major Challenges of Livestock Sector in India
Improving the productivity of farm animals is one of the major challenges. The average annual milk yield of Indian cattle is 1172 kg which is only about 50 per cent of the global average. The frequent outbreaks of diseases like Foot and Mouth Diseases, Black Quarter infection; Influenza, etc. continue to affect Livestock health and lowers productivity. India’s huge population of ruminants contributes to greenhouse gases emission. Reducing greenhouse gases through mitigation and adaptation strategies will be a major challenge. Crossbreeding of indigenous species with exotic stocks to enhance the genetic potential of different species has been successful only to a limited extent. Limited Artificial Insemination services owing to a deficiency in quality germplasm, infrastructure and technical manpower coupled with poor conception rate following artificial insemination have been the major impediments. After more than three decades of crossbreeding, the crossbred population is only 16.6 per cent in cattle, 21.5 per cent in pigs and 5.2 per cent in sheep. The sector will also come under significant adjustment pressure to the emerging market forces. Though globalization will create avenues for increased participation in international trade, stringent food safety, and quality norms would be required.
The livestock sector did not receive the policy and financial attention it deserved. The sector received only about 12 per cent of the total public expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors, which is disproportionately lesser than its contribution to agricultural GDP. The sector has been neglected by financial institutions. The share of livestock in the total agricultural credit has hardly ever exceeded 4% in the total (short-term, medium-term and long-term). The institutional mechanisms to protect animals against risk are not strong enough. Currently, only 6 per cent of the animal heads (excluding poultry) are provided insurance cover. Livestock extension has remained grossly neglected in the past.
Only about 5 per cent of the farm households in India access information on livestock technology. These indicate a sub-optimal outreach of the financial and information delivery systems. Livestock derives a major part of its energy requirement from agricultural by-products and residues. Hardly 5 per cent of the cropped area is utilized to grow fodder. India is a deficit in dry fodder by 11 per cent, green fodder by 35 per cent and concentrates feed by 28 per cent. The common grazing lands to have been deteriorating quantitatively and qualitatively.
Access to markets is critical to speed up the commercialization of livestock production. Lack of access to markets may act as a disincentive to farmers to adopt improved technologies and quality inputs. Except for poultry products and to some extent for milk, markets for livestock and livestock products are underdeveloped, irregular, uncertain, and lack transparency. Further, these are often dominated by informal market intermediaries who exploit the producers.
Likewise, slaughtering facilities are inadequate. About half of the total meat production comes from un-registered, make-shift slaughterhouses. Marketing and transaction costs of livestock products are high taking 15-20 per cent of the sale price.
Other major challenges faced by the sector are inadequate availability of credit, poor access to organized markets, limited availability of quality breeding bulls, water sources depletion, deficiency of vaccines and vaccination set-up, diversion of feed and fodder ingredients for industrial use.
1.Low Productivity
Despite the fact that India possesses highest livestock population and number one in milk production in the world, the productivity, particularly of ruminants has been extremely low, turning this precious asset of the poor into a liability. Over 60 percent of the rural households maintain large ruminants, mostly for milk and partly for bullock power. However, the average milk yield is significantly low.
2.High economic losses due to animal diseases The diseases in livestock pose major economic burden on the farmers. With improvement in the quality of livestock through cross-breeding program, the susceptibility of these livestock to various diseases including exotic diseases has increased. The inadequate coverage of vaccination is continuously resulting into economic losses due to various animal diseases. The estimates of losses due to different diseases are not easy because all diseases at all places are difficult to report. The direct losses estimated based on reported diseases indicated that average annual economic losses due to Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (HS), Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), Brucellosis, Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), Classical Swine Fever were in tune of Rs. 5255 crores (2014), Rs. 20000 crores (2016), Rs. 20400 crores (2015), Rs. 2417 crores (2016), and Rs. 429 crores (2016), respectively. It indicated that farmers in India incur almost Rs. 50,000 crores direct loss every year due to the five fully preventable (with vaccination) diseases. Government of India along with state governments spend equally good amount of funds on vaccination against these five diseases that almost one lakh crore rupees, the country is losing due to non-reporting diseases, substandard vaccines, inefficient vaccination, ill-education of livestock farmers etc. (Singh, B. 2019).
3.Inadequate infrastructure and human resources for support services Indian livestock sector is suffering from poor infrastructure and human resources. As on 31 March 2017, the number of veterinary institutions stood at 65242. As per the recommendation of the National Commission on Agriculture (NCA)-1976, One Veterinary Institution is to be provided for every 5,000 cattle units (one cattle unit =1 cow / 1 buffalo /10 sheep / 10 goats / 5 pigs / 100 poultry) to ensure proper veterinary health care Similarly, the Veterinary Council of India (VCI) has recommended that for every 5000 livestock population there is need of one veterinarian for effective delivery of veterinary services. It is reported that there are 67651 veterinarians in India, whereas estimated requirement by VCI is between 1.1-1.2 lakh (Damodaran, H. 2015). This highly inadequate human resources resulted in poor and inadequate veterinary services to the farmers. For the improvement of cattle breed and thereby milk production, Artificial Insemination (AI) technology is adopted in India in 1970 onwards. However, in the last 50 years, due to several such constraints, the average conception rate through AI is not going beyond 30-40 percent at field level and the contribution of milk from crossbred cows to total milk production is not exceeding beyond 26 percent.
4.Shortage of feed and fodder India with only 2.29 percent of land area of the world is maintaining nearly 17 percent of world human population and 10.70 percent of livestock (more than 535.82 million heads) creating a huge pressure on land, water and other resources. The country is having only 5 percent of its cultivable land under fodder production. Area under permanent pastures and grazing lands comprises a mere 3.30 percent of the total area, and has been declining steadily. Among different resources, crop residues are major one and these feeding resources are meeting more than 50 percent of the livestock sector demand in the country. At prevailing livestock productivity and production, livestock sector is facing severe feed and fodder shortage. In a report titled “Revisiting National Forage Demand and Availability Scenario”, released during August 2019 by the ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI) has pointed out that there is a deficit of 23.40 percent in the availability of dry fodder, 11.24 percent in green fodder and 28.90 percent for concentrates in India (Roy, A. K. et al,. 2019). There are already proven high yielding varieties of fodder and technologies such as silage making, hay making and urea- molasses treatment for crop residue. However, adoption of such technologies is very poor in many of the states. According to the Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) report, India generates on an average 500 million tons of crop residue per year. The same report shows that a majority of this crop residue is in fact used as fodder, fuel for other domestic and industrial purposes. However, there is still a surplus of 140 million tons, out of which 92 million tons is burned each year, which can be potentially used for animal fodder (S, Bhuvaneshwari, et al., 2019).
5.Inadequate public institution support The livestock sector did not receive the policy and financial attention it deserved. The sector received only about 12 per cent of the total public expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors, which is disproportionately lesser than its contribution to agricultural GDP. The sector has been neglected by financial institutions. The share of livestock in the total agricultural credit has hardly ever exceeded four percent in the total credit. (Shortterm, medium-term and long-term). The institutional mechanisms to protect animals against risk are not strong enough. Currently, only 6 percent of the animal heads (excluding poultry) are provided insurance cover. Livestock extension has remained grossly neglected in the past (Vet Helpline India (P) Ltd, 2013a). However, in May 2019, Government of India has formed separate ministry i.e. Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying at central level to address various challenges of livestock sector.
6.Inadequate processing and value addition Livestock product processing and value addition is being viewed as potential tool for sustainability of livestock production. As of 2018, the milk processing industry in India is expanded at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.80 percent (Laura Wood, (2019). The meat industry is one of the most important part of food processing industry. The processing rate of buffalo meat is around 21 percent and 6 percent for the poultry (Anonymous (2017). The major reason for inadequate processing and value addition in meat product is lack of necessary infrastructure. As on year 2019, there are only 1377 slaughter houses, 68 Abattoirs with meat processing facilities approved by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), 32 APEDA registered meat processing plants, 11 APEDA registered stand-alone abattoirs, 9 carcass utilization centres, and 25000 small scale meat retail shops apart from few private companies (Singh, A. 2019c). It is forecasted in Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2011 report titled “Mapping Supply and Demand for Animal-Source Foods to 2030”, the demand for various livestock product will increase by 80-100 percent in 2030 and out of total increase, nearly 60 percent of demand will be due to change in consumption pattern and frequency of intake and remaining 40 percent demand will increase due to increase in population. It clearly shows the importance of value addition and processing of livestock products (Robinson, T.P. & Pozzi, F. 2011)
7.Issues in marketing of livestock and livestock products Access to markets is critical to speed up the commercialization of livestock production. Lack of access to markets may act as a disincentive to farmers to adopt improved technologies and quality inputs. Currently, the livestock market does not undergo a uniform change. The changes are specific to species or products. But there are phenomenal changes from informal to formal market system in dairy and poultry. This can be attributed to the private industries participation. However nearly 60 percent of milk is sold by the unorganized sector (DADF, 2018a). On the other hand, sheep, goat and cattle meat remains in the informal sector without much investment from private players. In nutshell, the Indian livestock and livestock product market are mostly underdeveloped, irregular, uncertain, and lack transparency and often dominated by informal market intermediaries who exploit the producers.
8.Lack of attention of small ruminates The small ruminants i.e. Sheep and Goats are generally maintained by small, marginal farmers and landless, who cannot afford to own large ruminants. However, most of these small ruminants which are dependent on free grazing without any investment on supplementary feeding and health care, do not make significant contribution to the income. While the demand for meat is expected to grow high during the next two decades, the present system of unsustainable husbandry practices, highlights the status of these species deprived of technological and managerial support services.
9.Inadequate attention towards extension services The delivery of livestock services has three components viz. providing technical services to the animals; Supplying technical inputs and Educating the livestock farmers. Providing services to animals involves vaccination, deworming, breeding and disease management services for which technical inputs such as vaccines, medicines, semen, AI guns, syringes and needles etc., have to be supplied. The livestock farmers have no option but to depend on vets or para-vets for all the above services and, to some extent, supply of technical inputs. Unfortunately, the third component, educating livestock farmers on various aspects of livestock management, (feeding, vaccination, disease management, breeding etc.) is grossly neglected. Many a times, supply of inputs and providing services are considered as an extension service ignoring the fact that “education of farmers is the core of livestock extension service” (Rao, SVN. 2013). The focus of any extension services needs to be on building the capabilities of the farmers to take care of their animal and crop apart from transfer of technology and strengthening of various infrastructure and support services. Earlier, the State Department of Animal Husbandry (SDAH) were part of State Department of Agriculture but with the changing times, this department got separated and now every Indian state has independent department for Animal Husbandry. However, since beginning, the orientation of the SDAH remained confined towards giving healthcare and breeding services rather than production-oriented focus. In most of the states, the designation of veterinarians is Veterinary Officer (VO), Veterinary Assistant Surgeon (VAS) rather than Livestock Development Officer (LDO) which psychologically restricted their role on livestock development and building farmer’s capacities. The veterinarians are supposed to educate the farmers on scientific management practices, sustainability of livestock farming, ways to meet scarcity of animal feed and fodder, marketing of livestock, livestock products processing, environmental issues due to livestock, social entrepreneurship development etc. Thus, the development role of veterinarians on livestock production aspect is not explored adequately in India. In spite of above challenges in the Indian livestock sector is performing well, however in view of fulfilling the increasing demand of livestock products, these needs to be addressed.
Way Forward
To minimize the input cost and productive utilization of the resources, a livestock-based integrated farming system is the need of the hour . An increasing trend of intensive livestock farming poses a threat of zoonotic diseases for the human population . Since livestock products are highly perishable, they require immediate processing, storage, and preservation, to move them from production areas to demand centers . Processing and market linkages are, therefore, prerequisites for value creation and addition . As the gross capital formation is very less in the sector, there is an urgent need for public-private partnerships to increase investment . In the data-driven world, database management of animal information is necessary for monitoring and surveillance of various livestock development programs. To address the problem of the disposal of male animals, in cattle, sex-sorted semen technology should be promoted. In the case of buffaloes, the semen of the high genetic merit bulls should be made easily available to the farmers to improve productivity. There is a necessity to increase the insurance cover to shift the livestock owners’ risk to insurance companies, as only 15.47 percent of animals are under insurance cover . The areaspecific policy should be carried up example, in areas suitable for poultry production, policy focus should be towards poultry. The policy focus in rainfed areas should be on livestock rearing or livestock-based integrated farming system .The policies related to fisheries and aquaculture should be promoted, in, coastal areas. Kisan Credit Card facility should be extended to livestock farmers also, to provide them formal credit access. ‘Optimum usage of technology’ available for herd management and genetic improvement such that only non-descript populations are targeted and no dilution of pure indigenous breeds . The livestock sector has more potential than crops . In 2002-03 share of livestock in farm income was 4 percent, which was increased by 9 percent in 2012-13 and reached 13 percent when the share of cultivation increased by just 1 percent in this period Every sub-sector of the animal husbandry is growing around 6 percent annually , confirming the immense potential of the sector. The livestock sector has equitable distribution, unlike agriculture here upon each scheme or policy of the government affects the individual household directly. Additionally, chances of elite capture of the schemes are rare in the livestock sector, unlike agriculture.
Future Roadmap for the Livestock Sector in India
Trade and Market mechanism:
- Globalization will create avenues for increased participation in international trade, stringent food safety and quality norms would be required.
- The global market for animal products is expanding fast and is an opportunity for India to improve its participation in the global market.
- Access to markets is critical to speed up the commercialization of livestock production. Except for poultry products and to some extent for milk, markets for livestock and livestock products are underdeveloped, irregular and lack transparency.
- Further, these are often dominated by informal market intermediaries who exploit the producers. Moreover, marketing and transaction costs of livestock products are high, taking 15-20% of the sale price.
Finance:
- The sector received only about 12% of the total public expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors, which is disproportionately lesser than its contribution to agricultural GDP.
- The sector has been neglected by financial institutions.
Institutional Support:
- The institutional mechanisms to protect animals against risk are not strong enough. Currently, only 6% of the animal heads (excluding poultry) are provided insurance cover.
- Only about 5% of the farm households in India access information on livestock technology. These indicate an apathetic outreach of the information delivery systems.
Supporting Facilities:
- Slaughtering facilities are too inadequate. About half of the total meat production comes from unregistered, make-shift slaughterhouses.
- Develop Forward linkages for wool, fibre, meat and milk such as cold storage, food processing industries and textile industries for the consumption of livestock produced.
Feeding:
- Livestock derives a major part of their energy requirement from agricultural byproducts and residues. Hardly 5% of the cropped area is utilized to grow fodder.
- India has a deficit in dry fodder by 11%, green fodder by 35% and concentrated feed by 28%.
- The common grazing lands too have been deteriorating quantitatively and qualitatively.
Scientific Advancement:
- Improving productivity in a huge population of low-producing animals is one of the major challenges.
- The average annual milk yield of Indian cattle is 1172 kg which is only about 50% of the global average. Likewise, the meat yield of most species is 20-60% lower than the world average.
- Crossbreeding of indigenous species with exotic stocks to enhance the genetic potential of different species has been successful only to a limited extent owing to a deficiency in the quality germplasm, infrastructure and technical manpower.
Health Services:
- Frequent outbreaks of diseases continue to affect livestock health and productivity.
- India has about 55000 veterinary institutions including polyclinics, hospitals, dispensaries and stockman centres.
- Veterinary and animal health services are largely in the public sector domain and remain poor.
COMPILED & EDITED BY-By- Dr.Nirbhay Kumar Singh
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Veterinary Anatomy
Bihar Veterinary College
Patna
